


The Heart of a Town

by m4jor3tt3



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Asexual!Carlos, Cyber Vale AU, M/M, android!Cecil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-01-12 12:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m4jor3tt3/pseuds/m4jor3tt3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one knows exactly when it happened, but at some point, the fair city of Night Vale grew around the Interface, a strange and unknown technological force. That epicenter where the town grew around is now the community radio station, and those unfortunate few who have been chosen to host said radio show have been bonded to the Interface, and it is up to them to keep the city in check. A strange and rare occurrence happens when Leonard Burton passes his duties onto an unsuspecting intern, and years later, a scientist comes to town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The studio was dark and damp and cold- strangely so. The “on-air” sign above the door was turned off, leaving the room bathed in the dim blue light of the Interface. 

“Interface,” choked out Leonard feebly, his arms outstretched to the sides of the wall he was connected to. His helmet no longer fit his bulbous head, and even if it did, it would no longer be able to accommodate the thickness of his diseased, purple lips.

“Yes, Mr. Burton?” replied the soft, almost kind voice of the Interface. Leonard coughed weakly, the wires cutting into the metallic flesh of his arms, digging into his back through his shirt. “What… what is my percentage?”

“Mr. Burton is at ten percent.”

“Ten…” He sighed heavily, head falling, his chin resting against his chest. “How… how long before…?”

“Estimated time of shut down is ten hours. Replacement will be required.”

Leonard sighed again, eyes falling shut behind broken glasses. “I don’t want to die… hooked up to this…” He wondered aloud, managing to lift his head to turn and look at the wires, the only things keeping him truly alive now. He looked back up at the bright screen of the Interface. “Interface… are there any interns left?”

“Files say there is one intern, Mr. Burton.” An image flashed up on the screen. Leonard’s eyes widened.

The intern on the screen was young- maybe too young. Only fifteen years old. He had big bulky glasses perched on his nose, and the button down shirt he wore underneath his blood stained station issued “INTERN” shirt was wrinkled and untucked. He had purple marks on the backs of his hands and on his neck, as if something had grabbed him and left bruises that never healed.  
“Intern name: Cecil Palmer. Age: Fifteen…”

The Interface rattled off the information from the intern’s file, information that Leonard never quite paid attention to. “Yeah, yeah, has he got a family?” Leonard blurted out reluctantly- he was running out of time. He needed to get to the information that mattered.

“Yes, Mr. Burton. Mother: Amelia- maiden name Newhouse- Palmer, father: unknown, brother: Simon Palmer.”

“Where… where are they?”

“The father’s whereabouts have been unknown to the intern for years, the mother and brother went missing recently, Mr. Burton.”

“And... he’s had the visions, right? That’s what the… the marks are…”

“Intern has seen the ‘visions’, yes, Mr. Burton.”

“Right, right… good… well, not good, but…” He sighed, wriggling helplessly against the wires. “Interface… detach me from the power source.”

“Detachment will cause immediate shutdown, Mr. Burton.”

“Then hook me up to an alternate power source! And find the intern.”

“The cameras are picking up his heat signature in the break room, Mr. Burton.” Leonard nodded slowly. He listened to the whir of fans, and then the hiss of compressing air. A silver tank was deposited from the wall. “Alternate power source, Mr. Burton.” The Interface chimed. Leonard rolled his eyes and swallowed the lump in his throat. “P-percentage?” He asked, slowly pulling himself from the hold of the wall, watching the wires on the tank tremble and reach for him. “Mr. Burton is at ten percent.” Leonard nodded, feeling the wires slowly snake up his shirt and attach themselves. He sighed slowly, planting his feet firmly on the ground and grabbing onto the handle of the small wheeled cart the tank was on. “Show me the in-“ He cut himself off. “Show me… Cecil.” The Interface’s usual blue screen went to static, then a grainy camera image of a young man sitting at a table in the intern break room, sorting through cassette tapes with a slight smile on his face. Leonard cleared his throat weakly and sighed. “C-Cecil,” he choked out. He watched as Cecil perked up, his hand going to the piece in his ear. “Yes, Mr. Burton?” He replied eagerly. One of Leonard’s hands went to grip at his chest. “I-I… I need you to… to come to my office. I have a… a special task for you.” Cecil’s face brightened, his eyes going wide. He jumped up from his chair, a few cassettes slipping from his hands and lap. “Right away, Mr. Burton!”

“A-and… Cecil?” Leonard continued. He watched Cecil stop, his hand still at the piece. “Yes?”

“Call… call me Leonard.” 

“Yes… yes, Leonard. I’m on my way.”

The screen shut off and faded back to the normal blue Leonard was used to. “Anything else, Mr. Burton?” It asked. Leonard, still holding his chest, swayed slightly on his feet. “Y-yes. Two things. One… have Station Management on stand-by for my… m-my shut down. I don’t want Cecil to… to have to see me any longer than he has to.”

“Understood, Mr. Burton.”

“And… and you… Interface… call me, Leonard. Too. You too. Call me Leonard.”

“Yes, Leonard.”

The sound of feet rushing down the hall came to Leonard’s ears. He glanced up and saw Cecil, eager as ever, came running towards the door, a great grin taking up much of his face. Leonard nearly found himself crying. “Yes sir, Mr.- I mean, Leonard?” Cecil chirped excitedly, folding his hands behind his back. Leonard looked down at him with wide, sad eyes. He cleared his throat.  
“Cecil… I’ve taught you many things- all you need to know, really. And now…”

Cecil tilted his head slightly in confusion. “And now what?” Leonard’s eyes fell for a moment, then he looked back at Cecil. “And now I’ve no more to teach you.” Cecil’s face fell slightly. “What… what do you mean?” He asked, voice shaking ever so slightly. Leonard coughed into the crook of his arm, his breath coming out as a hiss. He waved Cecil over to the wall of wires, where the screen of the Interface hovered over their heads. “Cecil, this is… the Interface. The… the heart of the station.” He explained as Cecil walked over slowly to stand beside Leonard. “I thought management was the heart of the station?” Cecil asked.

“In… in a way, yes, it is,” Leonard said, shrugging slightly. “However, if it weren’t for the Interface, there… there would be no radio. There would be no… no Night Vale.” Leonard turned to Cecil, and slowly got down to rest on one knee in front of him. “You can ask the Interface… anything. Anything at all, Cecil. And… you might need to very soon.”

“What… what are you saying?” Cecil asked, looking up and making eye contact with the radio host. Leonard smiled weakly. “It’s your turn, Cecil. The station. The show. The radio… it’s yours now.” The wires of the tank began to slack; Leonard coughed. “Leonard is at eight percent,” the Interface said. “Shut down imminent. Replacement required.”

“Cecil,” Leonard choked out, grabbing onto the frightened teenager’s arm. “Quick… you have to… give the Interface your permission.”

“I-I don’t know- Leonard, what do I-“

“All you need is to say your name and that you accept the position.” Leonard coughed again. The tank toppled over with a loud clang as the wires keeping the host alive detached.

“Leonard is at five percent. Shut down imminent. Replacement required.”

Cecil looked around frantically. He looked up at the ominous blue screen, his throat dry. “I’m… Cecil Gershwin Palmer,” he said, voice trembling. “I… I accept the position a-as… the radio host?”

The wall behind him seemed to lurch and buzz. The wires began to tremble.

“Leonard is at one percent. Shut down imminent. Replacement detected.”

Wires shot out from the wall, tangling around Cecil’s arms, his legs. He wanted to shout, to cry, but for some reason… he felt strangely comfortable with the situation. He gasped as he was pulled harshly against the wall- the Interface shot out a red beam that scanned over his figure. “Transformation beginning. Shut down in ten minutes.” The metallic voice said.

“Leonard!” Cecil said, struggling against the wires. Leonard coughed and spat, writhing on the floor. “Don’t be scared, Cecil!” He said weakly, looking up at the trembling boy on the wall. “The Interface will protect you. It’s up to you now.”

Tears finally escaped Cecil’s eyes, falling down his cheeks in waterfalls. 

“Leonard is at point seven five percent. Shut down in seven minutes.”

Wires quickly entangled Cecil. Leonard choked on the floor. Whipping black shadows suddenly snaked into the room, wrapping up Leonard on the floor in a way that seemed almost gentle.

“Shut down in five minutes.”

Cecil’s head was jerked up to an upright position by the wires. Something was being lowered onto him. He suddenly felt a sharp pain just about everywhere- his legs and arms, his feet and hands, but especially his forehead. He tried to scream out in pain, but no sound came out. He couldn’t see Leonard being tightly wrapped in the shadows. “Shut down in three minutes. Transformation at ten percent.”

Everything suddenly went silent. Cecil’s glasses snapped on his nose from the pressure of what was being lowered onto him by the Interface and fell to the floor. The shadows collected them. It felt as though hours had passed. Cecil’s body went limp against the wall.

“Leonard is at zero percent.”

The blue screen of the Interface went dark. The shadows had disappeared, as had the tank, Cecil’s glasses, and Leonard’s body.  
It was quiet for moments, maybe hours, maybe even days. Then, the screen finally lit up again, this time a bright purple. The wires wrapped around the teenager’s frame loosened, letting him go and causing him to fall to his knees on the floor. On his head was a perfectly designed helmet with an opaque black screen. The scars on the backs of his hands had disappeared. He shakily got to his feet and reached up, slowly pulling off the helmet. It felt heavy in his hands. Cecil blinked newly transformed eyes with bright violet irises, touched the cool metallic skin now covering his body. He looked up at the screen hovering ominously above him. “… Interface?” He whispered. The Interface buzzed and whirred, like an old computer feebly attempting to start up.

“Transformation complete. Welcome, Mr. Palmer.”


	2. I.

When Carlos received an email from his supervisor saying he was being relocated with a team of other scientists, he thought they were going to work at a college or maybe even out on a freighter out in the middle of the ocean. He hadn’t expected the desert. In a town he never heard of. Night Vale was not on any maps, and when he tried to research it on the Internet, there was nothing to be found but conspiracy websites and blogs about the Bermuda Triangle. Nothing helpful, of course. 

After he had found the rental lab he and the team had been assigned to and settled in the apartment complex on the upper floor of the lab, he decided to take a drive. Only, when he tried to start up his car, the engine stalled. He had only just driven in about two hours ago, how could he be having trouble now? He climbed out of the car to pop the hood, and immediately shouted and collapsed backward. A bundle of dark, whipping, shadowy tentacles was hissing and growling as it flailed from the inside of the car. Carlos scrambled to his feet, rubbing violently at his eyes to make this vision of obvious sleep deprivation disappear, but when he opened his eyes the tentacles were still there, still whipping. 

“ _Ehi, signore!_ ” Shouted a brusque voice. Carlos looked up, chest heaving, seeing an enormous man with dark hair and a thick black beard approaching him. He was wearing a white dress shirt, black pants, and a red and green apron with the words “Big Rico’s Pizza” written across it in large, black type. “ _Cosa sta succedendo qui_?”

“P-pardon?” Carlos stammered, running a hand through his own hair- he really needed to get a hair cut, it was nearly past his shoulders- and attempting to stand up a little straighter. “What is this?” The man said gruffly in a thick Italian accent, gesturing to the car. “Do you not know proper auto care?” Carlos looked between the car and the Italian man, his throat dry, unsure of what to say. The man rolled his eyes and groaned, stepping past Carlos and up to the car. To Carlos’s amazement, the man reached into the engine, and with his large and apparently strong hands, he yanked the tentacles up. A great screech came forth from the car- Carlos covered up his ears. The man struggled slightly, but he had somehow managed to rip whatever was in Carlos’s car out with his bare hands. The tentacles whipped around briefly before going limp, and suddenly graying, then whitening, then being crushed in the man’s large hand into a fine dust. Carlos nervously adjusted his glasses, swallowing hard. “I... uh... th-thank you, sir.”

“It was nothing,” the man replied with a shrug. He offered Carlos a large, toothy grin, clapping a heavy had down onto his shoulder. “You must be new in town! I am Big Rico- owner of Big Rico’s Pizza right next door! You should stop in for a bite sometime!”

“Er... thank you, Mr. Rico, I will have to... think about it-“

“No one does a slice like Big Rico!” Big Rico laughed heartily, then leaned down close to Carlos, his smile suddenly seeming uncomfortable and a bit frightening. “No one.” Carlos smiled slightly, only to hide the fact that he was actually a bit terrified of the large man and nodded. He quickly slammed the front of the car shut and climbed back in, finding that it started up with ease. He waited for Rico to walk away, back to the pizza restaurant before sighing with relief and pulling out onto the road.

The town was strangely normal, considering what Carlos had just witnessed. It looked like any other suburb- people shopping, children playing, anything one would see in a small town. He almost thought that he had hallucinated the incident with the trunk and the large Italian man, and then he saw it.

Towering obsidian walls guarding something that he couldn’t see, and a group of ominous looking figures wrapped in dark cloaks. No matter how close he looked, Carlos couldn’t make out any faces. He slowly pulled up beside the walls- and all of the hooded figures’ heads turned to look at him. Carlos tilted his head, almost stopping the car and climbing out, when he heard sirens behind him. “Sir, please pull away from the dog park. This is an order. Please pull away from the hooded figures.” Said a deep voice coming from a police squad car parked directly behind Carlos. Carlos looked in the rearview mirror- the squad car’s windows were all tinted in such a way that no one could see who was driving or anyone else who was in the car. Carlos arched an eyebrow but obeyed, pulling away from the curb and watching the hooded figures slowly turn away from the street. 

Okay, so the town was a bit stranger than he had originally thought.

* When Carlos returned to the lab, he was greeted by a slew of new faces.

There was Paul, who shoved his way through the small crowd in the middle of the lab to shake Carlos’s hand, and then there was Sheila, who introduced herself three times. There was also Andrew, who immediately thrust a clipboard into Carlos’s arms, and Darla and James who were attached at the hip and gave Carlos extremely fond smiles. They were all fresh faced and dressed in crisp white lab coats, and a few of them had protective goggles hanging around their necks or strapped to their heads. 

Carlos was simultaneously overwhelmed and ecstatic.

“So, Doctor, we were thinking that we would be able to investigate a house down in Desert Creek, behind the elementary school-“ began Andrew, talking almost at the speed of light.

“We’ve gone by there a few times, there seems to be something terribly off about it-“ Darla and James said, almost completely in sync.

“Guys, guys,” Carlos quickly interrupted, holding out a hand with a slight chuckle. The team of scientists all shut their mouths- it was a little scary how quickly they all obeyed Carlos. He was suddenly at a loss for words. “Um… well…” He handed the clipboard back to Andrew before clasping his hands together. “First of all, you can… just call me Carlos- no need for the… ‘doctor’ out in front… and secondly, I… just got here.” He attempted, not sure of what else to say. It’s not like he was lying- he did just arrive a few hours ago, he wasn’t quite ready to dive right into the scientific mysteries of the small desert town- and there seemed to be plenty. The team all broke into quiet and indistinct chatter, nodding their heads to Carlos’s statement. “What should we do then, boss?” Sheila asked. Carlos’s face heated up. “Er… well, I don’t think any of you should refer to me as… boss or… or anything like that- we’re all scientists, right? You don’t need to… to come to me on what to do or anything, but feel free to come to me with any questions, yeah?”

The team were all talking hazily again, nodding their heads almost frantically. “So… well, I’m not the boss of you. You should… know that. We’re all independent people working together. But… right now, I should… sort out some of my things and also… take a shower-“

“Let me show you to your room!” They all shouted. Carlos jumped slightly, eyes wide. “Er… you don’t… all need to…”

“I’ll take you up there,” Paul said, shoving his way through the group again and giving Carlos a genuine smile. Sheila rolled her eyes and turned to speak to Andrew, while Darla and James excused themselves to a countertop covered in paperwork. 

“So, have you guys… all worked together before?” Carlos asked, following Paul up the stairs. Paul shook his head. “Most of us just met each other today,” he replied. “Darla and James are still taking courses at the community college, this is just field work they need to get credits. Sheila is the oldest out of all of us, she’s a professor at the community college- again. Field work.”

“What about you and Andrew, then?”

Paul’s ears reddened. “Well, that’s a… long story-“

“I mean… workwise.” Carlos clarified, realizing he’d hit a touchy spot for the other man. Paul laughed, the sound seeming a bit forced. “Right, right, yeah. Well, we’ve worked together before with other scientists that have come to Night Vale, but… they never last all that long.”

Carlos swallowed, his eyes going wide. “What do you mean?” He asked, voice a bit higher than intended. “What… happens to them?”

“Oh, the usual,” Paul shrugged. “They… disappear, get swallowed up by sink holes that spontaneously appear then disappear, accidentally burn their labs down with them inside…” Paul shot a look over his shoulder at Carlos, who had visibly paled. Then he laughed. “I’m only joking, Carlos. Scientists usually leave town after a few months or so. Night Vale tends to… stress logical thinkers to the breaking point. But the sinkholes and the fires are real, too- people just don’t die from those all the time.” Some color returned to Carlos’s face- but he still felt kind of ill- and he nodded, stopping as Paul stopped in front of a door. “We moved your luggage in here already- we didn’t touch anything though, don’t worry.” He said, pushing the door open. He fished into the pocket of his lab coat and held out two small bronze keys- one with a small “C” written on it. “These are yours. The one with your initial on it opens your door, and the other one is a key to the lab.” Carlos took the keys and nodded, slipping them into his jeans pocket with a smile. “Well, it’s a pleasure to work with all of you.” Paul smiled at Carlos and nodded, shaking his hand once again. “If you need anything, you can let us know- or, there’s a number for Big Rico’s downstairs. He’s kind of our landlord because the lab is technically on his property.”

Carlos nodded again. So that’s why he came running over, he thought to himself. Paul smiled again before leaving the room and shutting the door behind him.

Carlos sighed softly, turning to face the room. It was simple and clean- there was a window beside a small bed, and a dresser pushed up against the wall beside a small closet. Near the door, there was a desk, and on the opposite wall there was a bookcase and a corkboard. The bookshelf, however, was empty, aside from one or two books with titles Carlos could barely make out. He decided to cross that bridge when he got to it, though, and went to his bags. He hung up and put away his clothes, threw some of his notebooks onto the desk, and filled two shelves on the bookcase with what he’d brought with him (it wasn’t all books, there were some pieces of equipment he used often on there as well). He dressed the bed with sheets from home- he’d always had trouble sleeping on foreign bedclothes- then placed his hands on his hips, looking over the room. It was a lot like his home apartment, he realized- only a lot cleaner, and there were no holes in the walls from pushpins, and there were no notes pinned to the wall above the desk. Not yet anyway. He nodded slightly to himself and walked to the desk. Besides the things he’d put there from unpacking, there was what appeared to be a notebook fitted to be a field journal, a few strange tools that almost looked like writing utensils and a small radio. He smiled softly, then picked it up, then found some clothes in his dresser. He went to the bathroom and turned on the water, then turned the radio on.

At first, he picked up static. He tried to change it to familiar stations, but it was the same result- static, static and more static. Then he finally picked up a station, playing a soft and strange piano tune. Carlos shrugged, it must have just been the local radio- he had seen a radio tower while he was driving around, after all. He turned up the device and undressed himself, then got into the shower.

The music slowly faded out and a deep voice took over. It was almost monotonous, but professional and clear, and was talking about the dog park- it was apparently new, and… no one should approach it. Ah. That would explain the cop car that stopped Carlos earlier. It was obviously a radio show, probably the news for the town, and the only station his radio could pick up. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, though- it was a nice voice to listen to.

“ _A new man came into town today_ …”

Carlos nearly choked. He sputtered, squeezing water from his damp locks and peering around the shower curtain to look at the radio. 

“ _Why his perfect and beautiful haircut? Why his perfect and beautiful coat? He says he is a scientist. Well, we have all been scientists and one point or another in our lives. But why now? Why here? And just what does he plan to do with all those breakers and humming electrical instruments in that lab he is renting—the one next to Big Rico’s Pizza? No one does a slice like Big Rico._ No one.”

Did one of his team members phone in about him? No, they all said they had just gotten there when Carlos had returned from his drive. How did this radio host know about Carlos’s presence in the town, where his rental lab was, when Carlos had only arrived a mere few hours ago? Carlos swallowed hard. He suddenly didn’t feel right showering and listening to the radio. He climbed out, nearly slipping in his haste, and grabbed a towel. He quickly wrapped it around his waist and crossed the room to switch off the radio.

After managing to drag a comb through his hair, Carlos pulled on his fresh clothes and headed back down to the lab. Sheila was scribbling on a handful of paperwork, Andrew was attempting to help her, Darla was on her cell phone and James was peering over her shoulder to see what she was doing. Paul was leaning against the wall, looking down. Andrew looked up to see Carlos and quickly dropped what he was doing to rush over to him. “Do- Carlos! I’ve arranged a town meeting for you. Well. Us, I suppose. But I figured you would do most of the talking considering your new to Night Vale.”

“A town meeting?” Carlos asked, brow furrowing. “Are you sure? I don’t… I don’t really know what-“

“I’m sure you’ll think of something. You’re a scientist, of course! The meeting’s at noon.”

*

“ _That new scientist, we now know is named Carlos, called a town meeting_ …”

Carlos was starting to regret ever turning on the radio. In a circumstance where he knew he was talking about him, maybe he wouldn’t be so- for lack of a better word- creeped out. When the radio show talked about events in the town, there was nothing wrong with it. It was just reporting what needed to be reported. And did Carlos really need to be reported on? And how was this voice even getting all this information on him?

Well, actually, considering he discovered the location of the police officer (of the Sherriff’s Secret Police, apparently) outside the front window of the lab in a browning shrub, he wouldn’t be all that surprised.

It was still unnerving, though. Having a voice he didn’t recognize in a town he’d just moved to talking about him on a community radio show.

The radio was playing in Carlos’s car as he drove out to the housing development in Desert Creek- where the strange house Andrew had told him about was. If the radio picked up any other station, that’s what he would be listening to, but despite the strangeness of the radio show, he couldn’t stand driving in a silent car.

“ _Carlos told us that we are, by far, the most scientifically interesting community in the US, and he had come to study just what is going on around here_.”

Well, it wasn’t a lie. Night Vale did seem interesting- it didn’t appear on any map, and if you tried to search it on the Internet, all the result that turned up were conspiracy theorist blogs. But Carlos, feeling put on the spot due to the surprise meeting Andrew called for him, said the first thing that came to mind. And, now that he thought about it, he saw no reporters- or anyone that looked like reporters, at least- at the meeting, so who could have brought the information back to the radio station?

“ _He grinned, and everything about him was perfect_ …”

Carlos blushed, attempting to focus his eyes on the road. He blinked and lifted a hand to rub at his eye- he should’ve put more contact solution in before he left, his eyes were burning- when he heard it.

“… _and I fell in love instantly_.”

Carlos slammed on the breaks. He heard a medley of car horns behind him, but he somehow couldn’t find the strength to continue driving. The line of cars that had formed behind him all started to drive around him and Carlos was frozen. His face felt red hot, even as the voice on the radio continued on about the production of a harbor and waterfront recreation area- wait, what? They were in the desert, how… Carlos thought to himself, then shook his head, swallowing the lump in his throat. He blinked a few times and sank in the seat before beginning to drive again.

*

“I’m not knocking, _you_ knock.”

The conversation between Carlos and his team had been going on for about twenty-five minutes now. The house that had been mentioned to Carlos hours before, the one in housing development in Desert Creek behind the elementary school, the strange one that Darla and James swore was far from natural, even for Night Vale, Carlos had found to be nonexistent.

“ _’It seems like it exists,’ explained Carlos and his perfect hair. ‘Like it’s just right there when you look at it. And it’s between two identical houses, so it would make more sense for it to be there than not.’ But, he says, they have done experiments, and the house is definitely not there._ ” Carlos remembered hearing on the radio earlier, despite his desperate attempts to get Andrew to just shut it off. The whole situation was starting to scare him, in all honesty. At first it was the fact someone was talking about him and what he was doing at the exact moments he was doing things, but now it was more so the fact that no one else seemed to notice, or care, that this was happening. Carlos wasn’t the only one being talked about on the radio, he knew that, but even when others heard their names on the radio, they weren’t phased in the slightest. He honestly just didn’t know what to think, and that was a first- he was a scientist. It was his job to think.

He tried to push the thought out of his mind at focus on his work. Paul was now arguing with Andrew, while Sheila managed to distance herself and stand a little ways away from Carlos. He wished he was as smart as she seemed to be.

*

At some point in their investigation of the Empty House (which Darla had insisted on calling it- Carlos didn’t object, he didn’t feel like getting into another fighting match on a subject), Paul had said something about readings on a seismograph. “I don’t know if it’s wrong or not, but it says we just got hit by a 6.2 scale earthquake.” He had said. Carlos was curious, of course- the ground hadn’t moved whatsoever, let alone caused extensive damage to buildings. 6.2 was a strong class earthquake- it should’ve shook the foundations of all the buildings in town. “Alright, let’s go out to the monitoring station.”

Carlos enlisted Paul, mostly because he was the one who had said something about the scale readings, and Sheila, who seemed sane and like she wanted to get actual work done, to head to the station with him to get a better reading.

“ _I don’t know about you folks, but the ground has been as still as the crust of a tiny globe rocketing through an endless void could be. Carlos says that they’ve double-checked the monitors and they are in perfect working order. To put it plainly, there appears to be catastrophic earthquakes happening right here in Night Vale that absolutely no one can feel. Well, submit an insurance claim anyway, see what you can get, right?_ ” Carlos had heard on the radio once they had finished their readings. He felt slightly ill and shut the device off as he helped Sheila pack up.

“So… is the radio always like this?” He asked, shutting off a seismograph and carrying to the open flatbed of Sheila’s truck. Sheila looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… whoever is hosting the show doesn’t seem to have any… reporters or scouts or… whatever, to actually bring him this information. How does he…”

“Know everything?” Sheila asked with a slight laugh. Carlos blushed. “It’s been like that for years, Carlos. No one really knows why, but we’ve stopped questioning it. Whatever it is, it’s an effective way of getting the news.”

“By we, do you mean the royal we or…”

“I mean scientists in general around here. Citizens never ask questions.”

Carlos swallowed. He was suddenly very glad that he didn’t grow up in Night Vale- as a child, he was very curious (much like every other child), and most of his early years were a shroud of questions (“Mamá, why is the sky blue?” “Mamá, what makes a rainbow?” “Mamá, how do mountains happen?”) That no one could truly answer. He wondered briefly if that’s how children were like in Night Vale, if they asked the same silly questions as Carlos had when he was younger, or if they were just immediately shut down by their parents “It’s best not to linger on it, I think,” Sheila said, interrupting Carlos’s train of thought. Carlos looked up at her and nodded. “The host…” He began to ask, leaning against the truck and looking up at Sheila. “Do you know if he does unscheduled interviews?”

*

The radio station was smaller than Carlos had imagined. It was also strangely plain looking. The main room he walked into was carpeted with a deep purple, and the walls were light and cream colored. There was a long hallway to his right, and to his left was what appeared to be the recording booth. The glass of the window, however, was tinted, and Carlos couldn’t make out the figure behind it. 

“Can I help you, sir?” Asked a voice. Carlos turned around, seeing a young man, about sixteen, most likely, wearing a dark red shirt with the letters NVCR written across the chest, and a nametag pinned to it that read “Intern Chad.” In his ear, Carlos noticed, was a small silver piece that sort of resembled a Bluetooth headset, but also sort of looked like a hearing aid. Deciding it best not to think too far into this, Carlos cleared his throat and straightened his back, attempting to appear professional- but, who was he fooling, he looked about as unprofessional as they came- as he spoke. “Er…” Great start. “I’m… Carlos- the uh… the scientist- I was hoping if I could speak to the… the radio host?”

“Oh, you mean Cecil?” Chad, Carlos guessed his name was, that’s what his nametag said, asked, gesturing to the recording booth. 

“Is he the one on the radio right now?” Carlos asked, hoping to get a little clarity.

“Yeah, that’s Cecil. He’s a little… preoccupied at the moment, but… there’ll be a break in a few minutes, I’m sure. You can wait out here- I’ll tell you when he’s ready to see you." Carlos nodded slightly, his hands going to his pockets. He wandered a bit uselessly around the room, examining the photos on the walls. There were plenty, over a dozen, but his eyes went to one of the ones near the end of the line. It was a portrait of a balding man with harsh eyes. He was wearing a headset- actually, all of the people in the photos were wearing the same one- and his eyes were a bright, electric blue. A small plaque beneath the frame read “Leonard Burton. 1946-1994.” Carlos arched an eyebrow and tilted his head as he took a step back from the wall of photos, examining all of them as a whole. Not only was every person wearing the same black headset, behind them was a square of light, each a different color. Carlos thought it to be the window of the recording booth, but it wouldn’t change color, would it? Leonard’s, he noticed, was blue. Carlos read the years beside the man’s name as his year of birth and year of death, meaning that Leonard died at age 48. “That’s rather young… he looked healthy…” Carlos wondered softly to himself. Carlos looked to the next picture, directly to the right of Leonard’s. The face he saw was dreadfully similar to Leonard’s- stoic, cold, almost robotic. However, there were very subtle differences. The face looked a bit younger, and the lightest of freckles dotted the bridge of the man’s nose, most likely from sun exposure from living in the desert, and Carlos only really noticed them because he was leaning dangerously close to the portraits on the walls. The man was wearing a crisp button down shirt, and just barely rising above the collar were the tips of twisting, faded purple lines. They almost looked like bruises, but also sort of resembled tattoos of tentacles. For a moment, Carlos could’ve swore he saw one twitch… Carlos’s eyes dropped to the plate beneath the frame. “Cecil Palmer. 1979-.”

Ah. It was a wall of the hosts to the show Carlos had been hearing. At least, that’s what he assumed- Chad had said that the radio host was also named Cecil, but he didn’t say anything else indicating that the Cecil on the wall was the same one as the Cecil on the radio.

Chad came running down the long corridor again, appearing out of breath. Carlos looked up, tilting his head. “Okay,” Chad said. “Go right in.” Carlos heard a faint click and looked over his shoulder; the door to the recording booth was ajar. Carlos swallowed softly and slowly made his way over, pushing the door open and stepping inside.

The booth was small, and cold. The whir of the air conditioning unit filled the air around Carlos as he looked around the area. On the opposite wall, there was another door, which Carlos assumed to be an office or maybe a back door to the station. As he turned to the left, he saw a soundboard, and a round microphone hanging from the ceiling. Soft guitar music was playing (Carlos assumed that that was what was playing on the radio) and facing the soundboard was a man. The man spun in his office chair to face Carlos and gave him a broad grin. “You must be the Scientist,” he said in a purr, his voice deep and just about melodious. He extended his hand. “I’m Cecil.” Carlos nodded briefly and reached over to shake Cecil’s hand- his fingers were long and bony. “Yes, I… I’ve heard. I’m Carlos.”

Cecil was, to Carlos’s surprise, not that interesting in his appearance. His deep voice didn’t quite match his face. He wasn’t tall- or maybe he was, he was sitting after all- and he was thin, but not drastically so. The only thing that particularly struck Carlos were his eyes, which were an impossible shade of violet. His nose was long, his cheekbones were high and sharp. He was wearing a white button down shirt- very similar to the one he was sporting in the portrait of him- and… form fitting purple dress pants decorated with what looked like glitter and tiny yellow polka dots. So aside from his eyes (he must’ve been wearing contacts, it was impossible for anyone’s eyes to be that color in any lighting) and his… interesting fashion sense, Cecil looked particularly normal. Well, everyone in Night Vale had seemed normal so far, in their appearance at least. It was after getting to know them that they seemed strange.

Maybe it would be the same with Cecil.

“What brings you here?” Cecil asked, removing his headset and hanging it around his neck. Carlos had almost forgotten. He cleared his throat. “Yes, well… in all honesty, I was… wondering how you were… receiving information.” Cecil blinked his large eyes and chuckled softly. “Well, it is community radio, after all. Listeners phone in. Citizens stop by with news.”

“Well, yes, that is what I had… assumed, but… I just arrived recently, and I haven’t seen anyone in my team making phone calls, or… or anything like that- the most that I’ve ever gotten was someone on my team had organized the town meeting earlier-“

“And that was splendid.”

Carlos swallowed. Cecil seemed plenty friendly and kind, but he was a little… for lack of a better word, creepy. He probably didn’t mean it, of course, maybe he didn’t have all that much of a life out of the station- Carlos didn’t mean to be rude thinking this; he himself certainly didn’t have much of a social life whatsoever- and he didn’t talk to many people outside of anonymous tips and his intern.

Carlos cleared his throat. “Well, I was… curious as to… to how you knew I was here. Because… no one did except for Rico at the pizza restaurant next door to the lab, and he only knew because he’s technically my landlord-“

“Ah, Big Rico is a very nice man- you know, it’s required by law to stop in for a slice once a week.”

“Yes, the impression I got from h- wait, once a week?” Carlos sighed and shook his head. “Look, I honestly just… would like to know how you… knew about me. Are there cameras set up around town? That wouldn’t surprise me at this point.”

“Oh, yes, there are definitely cameras,” Cecil said, nodding. “But they’re not my doing. In fact, neither of us should know about them,” Cecil winked, nodding again. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.” Carlos stared back at the man, bewildered. Cecil was, honestly, impossible. Carlos wasn’t getting any answers out of him any time soon. Suddenly, Cecil quickly lifted his arm to his face and coughed violently. Carlos blinked. “Are… are you alright?” He asked. Cecil attempted a shaky nod through the hacks. “I’ll be okay- I’m just… I need…”

“What? Can I help?” Cecil’s face had changed quickly from one containing a flirty smile to one of sheer terror. He tried to stop his coughs, but failed, and continued to hack into the crook of his arm. He shakily lifted his free arm to point at the door on the other side of the booth. “H-help me get in there, please?” He wheezed. Carlos nodded and looked around frantically, then quickly strode over to the door and tugged it open. Then he walked back over to Cecil and, afraid to help him stand, began to push the rolling chair towards the door. However, he didn’t get very far, when the chair stopped and he heard metal dragging across the floor. “W-wait,” Cecil said quickly, gesturing behind him. “There’s a… a-" “Oxygen tank?” Carlos asked, seeing the silver device on the floor. Did Cecil have some sort of medical condition? Nevertheless, Carlos grabbed the handle of the tank and drug it behind him as he pushed Cecil into the secondary room.

The second room was even smaller than the first, and darker. The only thing providing light to the room was a large screen. “Interface,” Cecil croaked.

“Yes, Mr. Palmer?” Said a disembodied voice. Carlos looked around helplessly. 

“I need another… another tank- this one is…”

“Administering power source.”

There was a hiss of air, and Carlos saw an identical tank to the one he was carrying slide easily out of a slot in the wall. Cecil managed to pull himself up out of his chair and grab onto the handle. Suddenly, to Carlos’s surprise, a set of multicolored wires slid out from beneath Cecil’s shirt, and a new set replaced them. The color quickly returned to Cecil’s face and he took a deep breath. “What’s my percentage?” Cecil asked softly, his voice sounding much different from before.

“Mr. Palmer is at 79 percent.” Said the strange and light voice. Cecil let out a sigh of relief. “Sorry about that,” he said, chuckling and picking up the tank. “Now, what were you-“

But Carlos was already gone.

*

" _Carlos, perfect and beautiful, came into our studios during the break earlier, but declined to stay for an interview. He had some sort of blinking box in his hand covered with wires and tubes. Said he was testing the place for materials. I don’t know what materials he meant, but that box sure whistled and beeped a lot. When he put it close to the microphone it sounded like, well, like a bunch of baby birds had just woken up, really went crazy_ …”

While Carlos was unsure of why Cecil would make something up like this, he was glad he did. Maybe he was just embarrassed as Carlos was. He hadn’t meant to run out of the station like that, but really, who wouldn’t after witnessing something that could only be described as indescribable? He was lying on the bed in his room, his hands folded behind his head as he listened to the radio nonchalantly. It had been a long day. He contemplated returning to the studio. He was sure he would at some point, but when was a good time? Honestly, he just wanted to find out what the station really was, because it obviously was important to at least one form of life.

Carlos turned onto his side and closed his eyes. He was unsure of the time, because the clock that he had found in his room earlier that day wasn’t displaying numbers, but a slew of symbols that he couldn’t interpret, but it was dark out.

“ _Carlos looked nervous. I’ve never seen that kind of look on someone with that strong of a jaw. He left in a hurry. Told us to evacuate the building. But then, who would be here to talk sweetly to all of you out there? Settling in to be another clear night and pretty evening here in Night Vale. I hope all of you out there have someone to sleep through it with, or, at least, good memories of when you did._ ”

Carlos yawned softly, pulling his legs up toward his chest. Night Vale was going to be… different, that was for sure.

“ _Good night, listeners... good night._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big Rico's Italian courtesy of Google Translate- if anything is incorrect please do say so! Translation: "Hey, Mister!" "What's going on here?


	3. II.

It had been about seven months and just over two weeks since Carlos’s arrival in Night Vale- at least, that’s what he assumed- and he felt like he was getting the hang of things. Sure, it had been strange to completely cut all wheat and gluten products from his diet (he was used to making sandwiches every day, in all honesty. Then he turned on the radio to hear Cecil talking about “wheat and wheat products” and suddenly Darla appeared and smacked the one he was making right out of his hands, picked it up with a pair of plastic gloves, then threw it into a fire she had started out behind the lab.) But other than the occasional strange occurrence, Carlos didn’t particularly have any problems with Night Vale.

Okay, well maybe that wasn’t entirely true. He disliked the fact that he couldn’t use any writing utensils, which made quick note taking while doing experiments very difficult, and the fact that the first time he’d tried to use his laptop he’d brought from home it shorted out, then when Carlos attempted to fix it, it seemed to have grown spiny legs and crawled away from him. He had tried for twenty minutes to catch it, and then Paul demolished it with a sledgehammer. He also didn’t like the fact that two weeks ago, when he attempted to go out for a drive to the Empty House, Andrew had tackled him to the ground nearly in tears wailing about “Street Cleaning Day” and shouting something along the lines of “ _Have you no reason to live, Carlos_?”

But what hit him the hardest was that the fact that time didn’t seem to… work, here in Night Vale. All the clocks around the lab either flashed a solid light repeatedly- Carlos had assumed they flashed on the hour, but it didn’t seem that that was the case- or they displayed runes and symbols that no one seemed to be able to transcribe, or at least, they didn’t care enough to try. The only sources of true time Carlos had were his cell phone, which was set to Albuquerque time and he assumed that time in Night Vale wasn’t far off from the time zone he was used to, and his watch, a graduation gift from his abuela. Despite the fact that the hands of the watch spun rapidly for a few seconds occasionally, it tend to stick to a time that Carlos could read, and one that made a bit of sense. Though he wasn’t sure of any time anymore, considering that the sun tended to set at a different time every single day.

It had also been just over seven months since Carlos’s first encounter with Cecil. It was strange to think about that day, even now- Cecil was still a complete mystery to him. In all honesty, he hadn’t felt perfectly comfortable going to the station, what with the several apparent deaths of Cecil’s interns, and the fact that he still didn’t understand how Cecil knew everything happening in town the moment it was happening. The fact that Carlos was spoken about often on the radio wasn’t all that unsettling anymore, considering the fact that Cecil had started to drift away from adjectives like “perfect” and “beautiful” to describe him, and was acting less disturbing when it came to Carlos all together. At some point, Carlos began to enjoy listening to the radio again, especially hearing Cecil. He didn’t particularly understand why there was never a true report on the traffic, or why Cecil never really explained how the weather outside was, but listening to him nonetheless was… comforting. Maybe it was in the tone of his voice. Compared to the first time he’d listened, Cecil sounded different. A good different. His voice was less cold, less robotic; Carlos found himself turning the radio almost first thing in the morning while he was making coffee to hear the broadcast.

It was almost embarrassing, really. How Carlos found himself smiling and blushing a little when Cecil mentioned his name, even hearing the slight change of his voice when Carlos was even mentioned- the other scientists would often catch him and jab him in the ribs, asking him when he was going to go down to the station to see his “boyfriend” again. This, of course, only made Carlos more flustered, and often ended with him going outside to avoid the incessant giggling of his coworkers.

He did want to see Cecil again, though.

It was late Saturday afternoon. The air was thick with the usual desert heat, and Carlos was prodding at the insides of an alarm clock. There were no gears or battery indicating what was making the hands move, just a strange lump of grayish matter that none of the other scientists could seem to place. Suddenly, Carlos felt a hand clap down hard on his back, causing him to jump and cough slightly. “Come on, Carlos,” said Sheila, who had changed out of her goggles and lab coat and was wearing a loose fitting tank top and Capri jeans. “You’ve been at that thing all day. Come out and get a drink with me, Paul and Andrew.” Carlos sighed, pushing his goggles up on top of his head, thankful to get the hair that had been sticking to his face with sweat out of the way. He had opted for a ponytail, thanks to Darla, earlier in the day when the back of his neck was collecting more condensation than the outside of his water bottle. “What time is it?” He asked.

“What time isn’t it?” Sheila asked, chuckling and crossing her arms. “It’s late enough to go out and get a drink from the Ralph’s and come back here.”

“What about Darla and James? I feel bad for leaving them here alone- they’re underage…”

“We can pick something up for them, too. They can hold the fort while we’re out. We won’t be gone long.”

It was tempting. Carlos’s back was hurting from being hunched over his workbench all day, and he was pretty sure the blood flow was no longer reaching his feet from sitting too long… but he also wanted to see if he could get to the bottom of this clock mystery.

“As inviting as that sounds, Sheila, I think I’m going to pass…”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I don’t really like stopping in the middle of work.”

“Okay, then,” Sheila shrugged, looking over her shoulder at the door, where Andrew was checking his phone absentmindedly and Paul was standing beside him, his hands awkwardly folded in front of himself. Both had changed out of their lab attire as well- Carlos wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen them out of their work clothes before. Paul was a lot skinnier than Carlos had previously imagined, and Andrew was taller- he was standing up straight, as opposed to be being bent over the desk furiously writing. Sheila sighed. “I’ll make sure nothing… happens between those two. Want me to pick you up anything?”

“If you see something you think I’d like, go right on ahead.” Carlos gave her a slight smile. Sheila smiled back, patting him on the back before heading to the door, Andrew and Paul trailing behind her. Carlos pursed his lips as he straightened his back, wincing softly at the steady _pop-pop-pop_ ping of his back. “Darla? James?” He called. 

“Yeah, Carlos?” Responded Darla’s voice from the window. The two of them were outside interviewing the secret police officer who took the afternoon shift in their shrubbery. “Why don’t you and James head down to the Empty House? You guys up for a little independent work?”

“Really?” James asked excitedly. Carlos smiled softly, shrugging out of his lab coat and dropping it down on his stool. “Yeah. Try and knock on the door this time.” He heard the two of them high-five, and Darla giggling, then James shouting, “You got it!” Then the pair of them running out to take the car.

Carlos sighed, popping open the first few buttons of his shirt. It felt like it had gotten hotter in the span of his short conversations. He rolled up his sleeves a little further as he glanced over at the lump from the clock, quickly bending to get a closer look at it when he saw- were those teeth?

Carlos quickly wrote down his findings before nervously pulling his phone from his back pocket. He had gotten Cecil’s phone number and the station phone a few months ago from an intern, sent to the lab by Cecil “just in case he needed to call at any time _ever_ ” (Cecil’s words from the intern’s mouth, not Carlos’s.) And he had been tempted to call from time to time, for strictly work reasons, despite whatever his coworkers might say. But he could never work up the courage for… whatever reason. 

He figured this was as good a reason as any to call him up. 

He dialed the number with shaking thumbs before holding it between his ear and shoulder as he looked back down at the clock. The phone rang, rang, rang… “ _You’ve reached Cecil Palmer, I’m not available to take your call right now, for reasons that may or may not be dangerous and life threatening, please leave a message after the following hypnotic tones._ ” Carlos winced and pulled the phone away from his ear as a harsh noise blasted from the receiver. It was over, soon, however, and he sighed before beginning to speak. 

“Cecil. Sorry to bother you. I need you to get the word out that clocks in Night Vale are not real. I have not found a single real clock. I have disassembled several clocks and watches this week and all of them are hollow inside. No gears, no crystal, no battery or power source. Some of them actually contain a gelatinous gray lump that seems to be growing… hair and… teeth. I need to know if all clocks are this way, Cecil. This is ver-”

Carlos suddenly heard a strange static noise filling the air around him. He looked up slowly, squinting to try and see through the blinds covering the window beside the front door. “There’s something at my door, Cecil…” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I need to go, okay? I’ll call you back in…” He bit his lip, slipping down to kneel on the floor beside the window. “I don’t know.” He hung up quickly, and tried to look up through the window, then ducked back down again. He took in a deep breath and redialed Cecil’s number as he looked up through the window again, trying not to be seen by whatever was outside. He squinted, his hands trembling as the phone went to voicemail once again. “There’s… a man… in a jacket,” he whispered. “Holding a leather suitcase outside my door, Cecil. He’s… not knocking, he’s just standing in front of my door. I can’t make out his face. I’m peering through a crack in the living room blinds-”

The man’s head suddenly turned. Carlos gasped softly. “Oh no, he saw me-”

Then everything went black.

*

Carlos blinked a few times. He was sitting on the floor by the front door of the lab. The building was still empty. Did he pass out? His phone was in his hand- his last call was to Cecil about twenty minutes ago. He cleared his throat, feeling another urge to call him. He must’ve hung up suddenly when he called earlier. He dialed the number a third time.

“Sorry about that, Cecil,” he said, getting to his feet and opening the front door curiously. “I… forget what I was doing… I think somebody came over? But… I don’t remember who, or… what for.” He ran a hand through his hair and shut the door, and suddenly, words were coming out of his mouth before he knew what happened. “Anyway, I need to meet you. Are you free tomorrow afternoon? You have a contact number for the mayor and someone with the police, right? It’s important that I find them.” Carlos blushed softly. Did he just ask Cecil out on a date? He swallowed the lump in his throat. “A-And again, can you get the word out on your radio show about the clocks?” His fingers fumbled to end the call before sighing heavily.

He hadn't been on a date in probably eight years.

*

 _A few hours earlier_.

“Interface?” Cecil asked, leaning heavily against his tank as he looked up at the light purple screen. “Yes, Mr. Palmer?”

“What… percentage am I at?”

“Mr. Palmer is at eighty-six percent.”

Cecil nodded slightly, his eyes falling. “Detach power source.” He said, looking back up at the screen of the Interface. He gasped softly as he felt the sharp pricking of the cords from his tank detaching from his back. He sucked in a deep breath nervously and attempted to push off the handle of the wheeled tank and stand up. His legs wobbled slightly, but he managed to keep his balance. “I-Interface,” he said, nearly smiling but not wanting to get too excited. “What… what’s my percentage?”

“Mr. Palmer is at seventy percent.”

“How long until zero?”

“If Mr. Palmer stays disconnected from the power source, zero percent will be reached in approximately eight hours.”

“That’s another two hours than last time,” Cecil whispered to himself. He attempted to take a step towards his desk, when his knees gave and he tumbled forward. He grabbed onto the edge of the desk to push himself up and sighed, reaching out to the can again. “Reconnect.” He swallowed as he felt the wires snake up the back of his shirt and connect themselves. He grabbed onto the handle again and stood up, finding the strength returning to his legs.

It was years ago when Cecil was bound to the Interface- he could barely remember the day it happened. He did remember, however, feeling weak and small. He couldn’t walk, stand, or barely breathe without being connected to the station. He remembered that Leonard had had no problem walking around town without a power source, why did it not work for him? The Interface had told him that he couldn’t be away from the station until the bond had completed, but that wasn’t supposed to take eighteen years. He had gotten used to it, though. He had to carry around his alternate power source when he wasn’t directly connected to the wall in his office, and he couldn’t go farther than fifteen miles away from the station. That had never proven to be problematic to Cecil- he never really needed to leave the station. When he was particularly tired from a work day, his apartment was right around the corner. But his nights were often spent at the station due to the fact his alternate power source tended to run out of juice fairly quickly, causing him to call up the Interface through harsh wheezes that left his throat burning in order to plug back in.

He felt like an old flip cell phone- one that could barely retain a charge and had to be plugged into the charger constantly, and sometimes some of the keys didn’t work unless you pressed particularly hard or did a chant that involved a blood sacrifice and a ritualistic bloodstone circle (and that had happened once or twice before.)

“Interface?” Cecil asked, pulling up a chair. The screen shifted down to be eye level with Cecil. “Yes, Mr. Palmer?”

“… Show me Carlos?” 

The purple screen went to grey static, then a grainy image appeared. Carlos was sitting at his work station, looking perplexed, one hand cradling his forehead as his fingers carded through his long, thick hair, and the other prodding at the insides of what appeared to be a clock. Cecil smiled softly.

When he first saw Carlos, he felt something change. He didn’t know exactly what, though- he went through the database to see if the same thing had happened to previous Hosts, but he found nothing that compared with the symptoms he experienced. A tightening in the wires that wound beneath his flesh, specifically his chest, a loosening in the wires near his stomach. The metal skin of his hands became warmer, and at one point even, the Interface said that his face was glowing with a soft purple light. He was frightened- what was happening to him? Was he malfunctioning further? He didn’t need anything added to what he already dealt with. The Interface then told him that what he was feeling was impossible.

“Mr. Palmer is experiencing human emotions, specifically admiration and longing.”

As days turned into weeks, and weeks, months, the “emotions” only grew stronger. He soon found that when he would plug himself into the Interface in order to recharge his power source, he would shut down and experience… visions. Not terrifying ones, as the Interface had told him he used to have before the Bonding, but… very faint and pleasant ones. Carlos’s face, specifically, would drift in and out of view. The slightest of smiles. Brushing his hair from his face.

“Mr. Palmer is experiencing what the human population would refer to as ‘dreams’.” 

What was happening to him? He was feeling human things, human things were happening to him. They had never happened before Carlos arrived in Night Vale. Surely, he had brought some sort of strange field along with him that he didn’t know was there, an electromagnetic pulse that surrounded his very being- Cecil had found that out when one Intern couldn’t come near him without shocking himself and causing Cecil to short out for a few moments. 

What has Carlos done to him?

“Interface, disconnect image.”

The image of Carlos reaching for his cell phone after his colleagues disappeared faded and was replaced with the usual lilac of the Interface. Cecil stood from his chair, wobbling slightly but not an unpleasant or worrisome amount. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Disconnect from power source.”

The wires snapped out of place. Cecil nearly lost his breath once again, but managed to remain standing. “Percentage?”

“Mr. Palmer is at ninety two point eight percent.”

Cecil nodded slightly and closed his eyes briefly, opening them quickly when he felt the world around him sway.

“Mr. Palmer is now at eighty three point four five seven percent.”

 _It’s going down_ , Cecil thought. _Better do this quickly_. He managed to take a few steps on shaking legs and nervous feet, only to collapse to his knees as his weight became too much for him. “P-percentage.”

“Mr. Palmer is now at seventy nine point two percent.”

Cecil closed his eyes and tried to stand back up.

He didn’t even notice his phone ringing.

*

_A few days later..._

“ _Did you hear that listeners? A_ date! _Let’s go to the weather_!”

Carlos blushed softly as his nasally voice faded from the radio and was replaced with Cecil’s more collected, albeit excited, voice, then replaced entirely by another obscure song in place of a weather report. Andrew and Paul were snickering, and Sheila clapped Carlos hard on the shoulder. Carlos buried his face in his hands. “Asking out our Voice, huh?” Darla giggled.

“I didn’t- I just…”

“There’s no need to be embarrassed, Carlos,” Sheila laughed, rubbing his back. “Even if you do end up dating what constitutes as a town celebrity, you’ll still be our scientist.”

Carlos blushed brighter. Paul was about to say something when all heads turned to Carlos’s desk, where his cell phone was buzzing happily. Carlos picked it up, and suddenly felt as though you could fry an egg on his face. “Who is it?” Andrew asked.

“I-I… I have to take this in private,” Carlos muttered quickly, standing up and walking outside. He answered the call. “Cecil?”

“ _Carlos!_ ” Sang the voice on the other end of the line. “ _I got your messages!_ ”

“Y-yeah, I… I know. I heard.”

“ _You- oh, yes! Of course! The radio. So_ …”

“Listen, Cecil, I… er… when I said I needed to… to meet you, I didn’t refer to… well, a… well, personal reasons, I suppose.”

“ _Meaning_ …?”

“Well… I really just need to see you-“

“Need _to see me_?” Cecil sang. Carlos swallowed, blushing further. He wanted it to be personal reasons, oh how he wanted it to be personal reasons… _get your head together, Carlos!_

“Well, yes. I would… I would like to know if…” He sighed. “I have a lot of questions actually. They can’t all be asked and answered over the phone because you… you obviously have a show to finish, but… I’ve heard of a Night Vale Clock Tower, but I’ve driven around the city countless times and have found no such thing. I would like to know if anyone in Night Vale has ever really… seen it.”

“Well, of course no one has seen the clock tower, Carlos,” said Cecil. Figures, Carlos thought. He should’ve expected to get a cryptic answer like that from Cecil. “No one’s seen it because it’s invisible! And, sure, it would be easy to find after you’ve blindly felt your way around town, but it’s also constantly teleporting!” Cecil laughed. Carlos wished he could’ve thoroughly enjoyed that melodious laugh- wait, melodious? “It’s like it’s not even there!”

Carlos sighed.

“Right, of course… well, could you ask on your show, anyway, by chance?”

“ _Anything for you, dear Carlos._ ”

“I-I… thank you, yes. As for… well… all my other questions, would you…” Here came the hard part. “Would you like to… have coffee with me? Tomorrow afternoon, perhaps? Nothing fancy of course, it’s not like it’s a-“

“ _A date! Of course! Tomorrow afternoon sounds lovely! Come by the station- I’ll be waiting! Oh- I’m almost out of time, I’ll see you tomorrow, then!_ ”

“No, Cecil, wait, it isn’t-“

But Cecil had already hung up. Carlos groaned, running his hands through his hair. He tilted his head back against the door before pocketing his phone and turning to open it. As he pulled it open, however, a pile of scientists fell onto the ground at his feet.

“Really, guys? He’s just going to talk all about that conversation on the radio- did you really need to crowd around the door to eavesdrop on me?” 

The group all quickly got to their feet, talking indistinctively. Carlos rolled his eyes and pushed past them and back into the lab.

He supposed he had a date to prepare for. _It’s not a date it’s not a date it’s not a date it’s not a date…_ he tried to convince himself as he headed to his room.

*

When Carlos arrived at the station the next day, it was surprisingly quiet. And dark. Carlos tried to call for the latest intern Cecil had mentioned on the show, but received no reply.

“I gave Stacy the afternoon off because there’s no broadcast today.”

Carlos gasped, jumping and turning around. Cecil was standing by the door or of the recording booth, smiling carefully and leaning against the doorframe. By his side was the metal rolling tank that Carlos had assumed was an oxygen tank; Cecil was gripping the handle of it like a lifeline. Carlos relaxed softly, noticing the gentleness in Cecil’s expression. 

“Listen, Cecil, I’m… flattered that you were excited for this, but it… it’s strictly professional.” Carlos said, finding himself wincing slightly at his own statement. But the quiet smile that lay on Cecil’s face remained and shrugged. “I understand,” Cecil said, nodding and folding his hands in front of himself- Carlos noticed him wobble slightly but then straightened up. “I… did kind of overreact, I suppose. I don’t think my head was exactly on straight.” Cecil quickly reached over again and grabbed onto the handle of the tank, using his free hand to straighten his fluorescent green tie. 

“Well, really, I think I need to-“

“Hang on,” Cecil interrupted quickly, stepping out of the door frame. “It’s… more comfortable in the booth- there are… chairs and what not.”

Carlos found himself blushing softly but nodded, stepping past Cecil and into the small booth. Cecil walked in and pulled up the rolling chair and slowly sat himself down while gesturing to the small dark purple couch pushed up against the wall, which Carlos assumed was where potential interview candidates sat during the broadcast. “There’s coffee in the break room-” Cecil began, but Carlos held up a hand and smiled slightly. “I… really just want to talk.”

Cecil arched an eyebrow slightly but nodded, carefully crossing his long legs and adjusting the position of his tank. “Talk about what?”

“Well… I suppose we can start with the clocks.”

“Ah,” Cecil said, nodding. “You said something about all of them not having… what was it…”

“Power sources? And some of them having… well, things I can’t particularly explain? Yes. If no clocks tell a true time, then-“  
“Time doesn’t really exist,” Cecil said, in an alarmingly calm tone. Carlos blinked quickly, mouth opening and closing much like a fish. Cecil looked up at Carlos, noticing his expression and shrugging. “Not… here, anyway. Or anywhere, if you really think about it. I mean… clocks exist, of course. And they indicate a certain time, whether it be… four in the afternoon or twelve thirty seven in the morning… but is time really… real?”

Carlos stared at the man in front of him incredulously and, for once, truly speechless.

“I… can’t afford to think like that.” Was all he managed to say. The two men sat silently for another moment. Carlos opened his mouth to ask another question, but Cecil looked up at him and smiled a sort of smile that made Carlos shut his mouth immediately. Cecil chuckled. “Wouldn’t you agree it’s… my turn to ask you something, Mr. Scientist?” He asked. Carlos swallowed, his mouth feeling strangely dry all of a sudden. “Um… yes, I suppose I do agree. What’s your question?”

“Why did you come to Night Vale?”

It was a simple question with a simple answer, but for some reason, Carlos couldn’t find his words for a moment. In the dim light of the booth, Cecil seemed to glow- very faintly, yes, but it seemed as though he was the one providing the light in the booth, and not the soft light coming from the single bulb above their heads. It was… distracting. Interesting, but not something he should be trying to analyze and figure out at this exact moment. He cleared his throat.

“Well, my supervisor sent me here, really. Well, sent is a strong word. She said to me that I have great potential that was, in a way, being wasted with me being stationed in the same spot I’d been working in for nearly… ten years, I want to say. So, she mentioned Night Vale- or rather, she mentioned a strange dark area on all maps and research papers, and there was no way to get research on it without having someone… go there and look at things and report back. However, that’s been difficult, as it seems it’s almost impossible for me to send any emails back to Albuquerque, or make phone calls, or really, anything having to do with technology of any sort, but… I’ve sort of gotten used to that, I think.”

Cecil nodded slowly at the end of Carlos’s almost rant, folding his hands in his lap and pursing his thin lips. His eyes flashed back up to Carlos. “Do you have any other questions for me?” He asked, tilting his head.

“Well…” Carlos did have questions. He had questions upon questions, actually. But at that moment, with Cecil almost staring him down from a mere four and a half feet away (an approximation, really), with his seemingly glowing skin and that bright tie he was wearing and the small enclosed space constricting his lungs, he couldn’t remember any. One came to mind, however, and it helped him break the silence that had formed around them.

“In the… photos outside in the lobby. I assume all of them are past radio hosts?”

“Past as in they used to host the show, and passed as in they have died, yes, you are right,” Cecil said, nodding. Carlos managed a deep breath. “Behind… all of you in every image- not to mention the fact you all look… strikingly similar, as in your facial expression but that’s only an observation- have… something behind you. It almost looks like… like a screen? I thought it was a window, maybe the window of the booth, but there’s a… a different color in each image. The man before you, I believe the plate said his name was Leonard, the light behind him is blue, and then you come right after him, and the light is purple- Cecil?”  
Cecil had uncrossed his legs and was gripping the armrests of the chair so tightly his knuckles were becoming pale. His eyes were impossibly wide, and his mouth had dropped open slightly. 

“Cecil? Are you alright?”

Carlos swore he saw a flash of light beneath Cecil’s skin, a quick white burst that swirled faintly before disappearing, then Cecil blinked and returned to reality. “What?” He asked distractedly, shaking his head. “I-I… I’m sorry, that… that doesn’t happen often- what were you saying?”

“Well… the light behind all of the hosts’ in their pictures outside. What is it?”

“Oh, that? That’s just-” And then he stopped again. His face didn’t go blank like it had a moment ago, but he had stopped apparently to his own accord. He licked his lips quickly and glanced over to the door on the other side of the booth, the one leading into the office. “Um… I… I don’t think I can… tell you…” 

Carlos tilted his head slightly, but he thought it best to not press the topic. “Well… alright.”

“Why did you run away?” Cecil asked suddenly, looking up at Carlos, a sudden pang of worry crossing his features. Carlos looked at him, perplexed as he folded his hands in his lap. “Run away?”

“Yes. The… the day you arrived here. You came to the station to… to ask me something. You wanted to know if there were cameras set up around town that belonged to the station, because you didn’t know how I knew about you, and what you were doing without having any… any one out to report back to me. Right?”

Carlos remembered. Vaguely, yes, because more important topics had filled his thought space since, but he remembered. He nodded, but remained silent.

“In the middle of our conversation, I… I had a coughing fit. You were nervous. Your… your heart rate jumped slightly, actually, because you didn’t know what to do or what was wrong with me or how to help me.”

Carlos blinked. His heart rate rose? How did Cecil know that, of all things?

“You helped me get to my office, and… you heard me speak to-” Cecil stopped himself again. His eyes darted to the office door before he got to his feet, grabbing the handle of his tank. “I’m sorry, Carlos, this has been lovely, but I think you have to go.”

“Go? You were the one who was so excited for me to show up-“

“Carlos.”

Cecil’s voice had suddenly changed. There was a pang of something in it… concern, maybe? Nervousness? But Carlos complied silently, nodding and getting to his feet. He attempted to reach out a hand, hoping Cecil would shake it, but Cecil remained still, his eyes on the ground. Carlos swallowed and slipped his hand into the pocket of his lab coat. “Well… thank you for having me. It was… nice talking to you.”

Cecil didn’t respond.

*

Carlos went back to the lab, confused in the greatest sense of the word. Cecil had been so excited to talk to Carlos, so excited to see him in general, then he was so eager to get away from him. Had it been his questions about the pictures? Were they invasive? Not that Carlos would know, he had been in Night Vale for nearly a year and he still didn’t completely understand the mannerisms that residents born and raised in the town expressed, but then again, Cecil could be completely different from any other Night Vale citizen and Carlos would, most likely, not realize it. 

He wanted to know, though. He wanted to figure it out. There were many mysteries in this little town in the middle of the desert, but Cecil was one that Carlos couldn’t place right away, or write a report on. He was an experiment that needed time and patience.

That is, if Carlos could muster up the courage to actually study him.


	4. III.

“No, no, no, absolutely not!” Shouted Teddy Williams, causing James and Darla to jump back in surprise, but Carlos remained stationary. “I will not allow a group of hoity-toity smart asses in white coats ‘investigate’ lane five! I have a group of capable fighters protecting my patrons, and I will not have people like you disrupting them!”

“Mr. Williams, if I may,” Carlos attempted to argue calmly. Teddy cocked a thick eyebrow and crossed his arms. Carlos cleared his throat. “Maybe, you would be more comfortable if only one of us went down lane five? Me, for example?” 

Teddy scoffed. “You? Mr. Perfect Hair? You wouldn’t stand a chance against a potentially armed, potentially dangerous, potential army down there! I would trust one of your lackies here more than you- at least they’re from here.”

“Mr. Williams, I fear you’re being a little harsh and closed-minded- it would be an amazing opportunity for my crew and me to study this underground city. And you said it yourself- this army is completely potential. If there even is a city down there, they could be completely harmless.”

“And what if they’re not? I may be a doctor, but I can’t bring you back from the dead, Mr. Scientist.”

“I highly doubt anyone will die if I go down there.” Carlos said, smirking slightly.

“Do you not understand what I’m saying? I’m not letting any of you down there, big shot! End of story.”

“I’ll be back Mr. Williams,” Carlos said, ignoring Teddy’s comment. “I’m sorry, but if these… theoretical people are dangerous, I should be the one reasoning with them, and you can fire your guns if necessary.” Teddy began to babble once again, but Carlos, Darla and James had turned around and were heading back towards Carlos’s truck.

Today marked one year since Carlos had relocated to Night Vale. He had stopped getting emails and phone calls from his supervisor all together a few months back, and- well, now that he thought about it, he probably should’ve gone back to Albuquerque when he stopped receiving feedback, but after you work a year in an interesting place with interesting people, you get attached. Maybe not to the people and the town itself, but what you’ve studied there. 

If you had told Carlos one year ago that he was going to end up working in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere, with possibly the strangest group of people you would ever meet, he would’ve scoffed and gotten back to work. If you had told him that that same group of people were so attached to his tangled rat’s nest he called a head of hair that they refused to let him get it cut, and the first time he did get it cut they sent the barber into exile, and now he was stuck with tying it back with a rubber band, he would’ve laughed. But here he was, loading equipment into the back of his truck with the two most codependent college science majors he’d possibly ever met with a ponytail at the base of his neck and his bangs hanging in his face with the hot, hot, hot sun beating down on his back through his lab coat.

Carlos had debated leaving Night Vale before this point, yes, but something had been keeping him. It might’ve been some thoughts that had been weighing him down. Maybe it was an actual physical force grabbing ahold of him and literally holding him back from leaving. At this point, Carlos would believe either.

Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t something, but someone. Carlos had spent time contemplating that possibility (it was his job to think, that’s what a scientist does) but there was really only one person that someone could be.  
Cecil.

With his luminescent skin and bright eyes and penchant for painfully colorful clothes that Carlos had only seen a few times before (the strangest being a pair of near sinful purple striped shorts and a short sleeved neon orange button-down with sandals and an incandescent green tie) and his gorgeous voice- a fact Carlos was embarrassed to admit at first, then learned that just about every other person in Night Vale had the exact same thoughts.

“So, when are we coming back?” Darla asked, thankfully interrupting Carlos’s train of thought. Carlos blinked a few times before shaking his head. “Not we,” he said, shutting the door to the bed of the truck. “Just me.”

“Are you sure?” James asked, quickly getting to Carlos’s side. Carlos glanced over at him and nodded. “Mr. Williams was adamant about not letting any of us in,” Carlos explained. “So, if we all go then it’ll look suspicious and he’ll make sure none of us get in. However, if I just go, then I can sneak in and be able to get under lane five without a problem.”

“Well, what if he’s right about the malevolent city down there?” Darla asked, hands on her hips. “If it’s dangerous, we obviously can’t let you go alone.” 

“Then you can stand out and take watch,” Carlos insisted, shrugging and heading over to open the drivers’ side door. “I’ll have my phone on me- I’ll be able to call you if things get hairy- and I can assure you, they won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?” James asked, walking up to Carlos. “You don’t know what could be down there. If it isn’t an army, maybe it’s a nest of something rabid! Or…”

“James,” Carlos said, turning toward him and arching an eyebrow. “Teddy Williams is deranged, and I am getting to the bottom of this- someone has to. And I can tell you that there is nothing down there that could put anyone’s life in any harm.”

“Um… guys?” Darla interrupted, appearing between the two of them. “I… think we should go. That guy over there is seriously giving me the creeps.” Carlos looked up to see a man hovering outside the doors to the bowling alley, kneeling down and running his dark fingers through the sand. On top of his balding head was a tall, plastic Native American headdress; Carlos cringed as Darla quickly climbed into the truck. “Yeah, you’re right, Dee,” James said, rolling his eyes in disgust. “Come on, Carlos.”

Carlos shot a glance at the Apache Tracker, who was paying no mind to them before getting into the truck and starting the engine. 

*

“Carlos, you have a missed call,” Paul said distantly over his shoulder to Carlos, who was picking through various devices and scanners he thought he would need on his endeavor into the bowling alley. Carlos hummed softly in acknowledgement but didn’t make any move to turn around. He heard Paul sigh. “It’s from Cecil?” He tried. Carlos glanced up briefly, suddenly realizing that there was no radio playing, the air around the pickup truck was actually completely silent except for the occasional sound of a wind gust in the desert heat. “Did he leave a message?” He asked, turning around partway to look at Paul and the equipment simultaneously. Paul looked down at Carlos’s cell phone and raising an eyebrow inquisitively. “Yeah, I think so.” Carlos pursed his lips slightly, raising an eyebrow and turning around completely. “Isn’t he broadcasting right now?”

“He should be, I think,” Paul said, glancing over at the truck radio, which was turned off. Carlos tilted his head slightly, picking up a small scanner and clipping it to his belt before shrugging his lab coat off. “Um…” he began, folding the coat and draping it over the back of the truck. “You have the station number, right? Tell him I’ll get back to him.”

“What if he calls me?”

“Tell him I’m at the bowling alley and I’ll call him back.” Carlos walked up to Paul, reaching into the seat of the truck and picking up his phone to slide it into the pocket of his jeans. He glanced up at Paul, who was leaning against the truck and looking down, a pair of protective goggles hanging around his neck. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Paul said quickly, defensively, as he stood up straight again. “I just… have kind of a bad feeling about this whole… experiment you have planned.”

“Not you too, Paul,” Carlos sighed, rolling his eyes. “I brought you here because you’re my rock- I can’t have you getting nervous, too.”

“Sheila told me that you were bringing me with you because she had a class to teach and ‘there was no way you were taking James and Darla.’” Paul countered, crossing his arms. Carlos blushed softly and chuckled awkwardly. “Well… you and Sheila are both the solid ones in our… band of misfit scientists. Besides, you said you wanted to come because Andrew-”

Then Paul’s face was flushed and he had turned away from Carlos quickly, muttering something Carlos couldn’t completely understand. Carlos smiled softly and rolled his eyes fondly, patting Paul’s shoulder. “I’m on my way in. I’ll call you if anything happens, okay?” Paul glanced slightly over his shoulder and nodded, running a hand through his hair and turning around to keep his face hidden. Carlos nodded and started to walk up to the bowling alley before stopping once again. “Oh- er… Paul?” He asked, biting his lip. “Could you… turn the radio on? Just… just in case.” Paul looked up at him and cocked an eyebrow, still slightly blushing but now smirking knowingly. “You got it, boss.” Carlos smiled slightly before turning around to head into the bowling alley.

The space wasn’t as crowded as Carlos had originally believed it would be. There was a small group of people close to a group of lanes that was surrounded by streamers and balloons, and a few smaller groups near individual lanes. The most clutter was around lane five, where a group of heavily armed men were guarding the lane. Carlos swallowed softly and he stepped toward what appeared to be a party, hoping to blend in. He stuck to the outskirts of the group, hoping to step around them and then, around the guards. He was practically holding his breath as he neared the closest guard, who had- in the most favorable turn of events- occupied himself with a water bottle. Carlos managed to get his last step in around the guards and released his breath, nodding to himself as he began to carefully walk down the slippery lane to the pin-retrieval area.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Shouted a voice behind him, recognized easily to be Teddy Williams. Carlos jumped slightly, throwing a glance back to Teddy Williams, who was pointing furiously at him as a few guards turned as well. Carlos quickened his pace, slipping slightly as he got to his knees to slip into the pin retrieval area. “It’s that scientist! Don’t let him…”

The muddle of voices had faded as Carlos found him sliding down a dirt hill, which really should’ve been the lift that picked up knocked down pins. He glanced behind him, thinking he was going to see a group of guards coming after him, but he didn’t get to look long, because he was landing knees first on the ground below him. Carlos slowly got to his feet, brushing the dirt off his jeans and looking up toward the entrance from which he’d fallen- it was roughly a ten foot incline, rather than a steep drop as he had previously assumed; with proper hiking boots it would be an easy climb. However, in front of him, he saw skyscrapers. Skyscrapers crafted from mud and dirt and sand and pebbles. Skyscrapers that appeared to only come up to his hip, the tallest maybe to his waist. They looked like a child’s sandcastles more than anything. Taking a few steps closer, Carlos slowly began to realize that, while Teddy had been correct about an underground city, he had been incorrect on the size of the city. What appeared to be far away from the base of the hill was actual size- the tallest tower did only come to Carlos’s knee.

“Tiny people.” Carlos said to himself, raising an eyebrow to himself. He glanced around- it was just about silent aside from a quiet mumbling Carlos couldn’t place. Carlos suddenly found himself chuckling, then laughing. “Tiny people.” He reached into his pocket, pulling his cell phone out to send a text to Paul, telling him to come into the bowling alley, that everything was fine and to gather up everyone at lane five. He took another look at the city and laughed to himself before climbing up out of the pin retrieval area once again.

“I told you numerous times, Mr. Scientist, I didn’t want you or anyone else down there!” He heard Teddy shouting as he pulled himself up out of the pin-retrieval area, Paul trailing behind him. Carlos laughed, rolling his eyes. “Mr. Williams, I can now safely assure you that we have absolutely nothing to fear.” He said, grinning. He couldn’t quite tell what he was grinning at, in all honesty- it might’ve been the discovery itself, how scientifically interesting and bizarre the find was, or maybe it was the fact that so many people, including himself, albeit briefly, were so scared of just what was under the lane. Nonetheless, Carlos had gotten to his feet and pushed his way past the guards, holding his arms out. “Patrons of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley-“

“And Arcade Fun Complex, trademarked,” he heard Teddy grumble behind him.

“And citizens of Night Vale,” Carlos continued, as though he had not been interrupted. “The fear you may have had about what was underneath this establishment can be forgotten!” There was a mumble over the crowd that had formed around the lane, Paul was behind Carlos and tapping his shoulder quickly, nervously attempting to get his attention. The crowd was then following Carlos, Paul becoming lost in the mass of bodies, as Carlos began to descend again. He heard gasps and whispers behind him up near the entrance to the city as he slowly began to walk out towards the city. “Behold,” he called to the group, turning to face them and holding his arms out, gesturing to the tiny metropolis. “This is not an enormous city, miles below the Earth like many of you have been led to believe,” he said, pointedly glancing up at Teddy Williams, who folded his arms and sneered.  
“It is a very small city,” Carlos continued. “About ten feet below the earth, populated by tiny people, who have had to spend a year slowly climbing the ten feet to our world!” He looked around at the city, seeing tiny figures peeking out from windows and around buildings, then back up at the crowd of people, the murmur he’d heard from his first descent growing louder; Carlos ignored it. “We have nothing to fear!”

The whispers that fell over the crowd were brief, as they were interrupted by a particularly loud… battle cry? Carlos turned around, seeing a group of the tiny people slowly approaching him. He cocked his head, attempting to kneel down slowly, when he felt a sudden, sharp pain near his shoulder. Then another one near the center of his chest. And another, and another. Tiny pinpricks attacked his skin through his flannel shirt, and looking down, he saw tiny spots of blood begin to form. He stuttered, hearing a shout from above him as the pinpricks began to spread across his chest and stomach. “Carlos!” He heard Paul’s voice shout down to him. Carlos fell against the side of the hill, feeling slightly woozy. He brought a hand to his chest, pulling it back to see his fingers glistening and dripping with scarlet. “Paul…?” He coughed, looking up slowly to see Paul sliding down the dirt hill. Carlos suddenly felt faint, collapsing to his knees as the sound of Paul’s terrified voice grew muffled. Carlos coughed hoarsely, collapsing forward.

*

Carlos was awakened by the sound of what sounded like a dying animal crying out for help.

He blinked slowly. Fluorescent lights invaded his vision, as did blurry dark figures. He groaned softly, rubbing his forehead as he attempted to sit up.

“Carlos!”

Carlos glanced around, then up, seeing Paul shove through a group of people, and around what appeared to be Teddy Williams. “Paul?” Carlos murmured, unable to raise his voice much more than the current level. Paul was suddenly at his side, assisting him with getting to his feet. “What…”

“The tiny people,” Paul said, helping Carlos refill the gaps in his memory. “They attacked you. We’re not sure with what, but from what Teddy says the militia saw, it looked like tiny explosives and some kinds of projectiles…?”

“How… did you…”

“No, it wasn’t me that got you out of there when you passed out, and by the way, it’s nothing serious- Teddy confirmed that- the reason you fell was because of the sudden amount of pain you felt and not from blood loss or poison or whatever, it was-”

“He’s dead.” A second voice interrupted. Carlos leaned against Paul and turned his head. Teddy was kneeling on the ground above a body, a bloody and mangled one. Carlos squinted as Paul’s face fell. “It was him,” he said softly as Carlos recognized the body on the floor, which was being covered with Teddy’s sport coat. “The Apache Tracker is dead.” Teddy clarified loudly to the group of people. There were soft gasps, and what sounded like “This is the worst birthday party anyone has ever had,” from a voice that was separated from the group.

“We should get out of here,” Paul said, looking up at Carlos, who nodded slightly.

As they exited the bowling alley, Carlos found his strength again and stood up, walking slowly to the truck. “Oh, uh… Carlos,” Paul said, still at the older man’s side. Carlos looked over at him, rubbing his eyes and looking down. His life was saved, presumably, and in return, another was taken. Yes, it had been the life of the town racist, whom he’d never learned the true name of, but in any case, Carlos was suddenly feeling a pang of survivors’ guilt. He didn’t really want to speak to anyone at the moment, but considering how Paul had been acting before the attack, he felt like what he needed to tell him was important in one way or another.

“It was… Cecil,” he said. Carlos stopped, grabbing onto the edge of the truck and looking over at Paul. He said nothing, however, and waited for Paul to continue. The shorter man cleared his throat. “When I got your text, I told Teddy to turn on the radio because you… were so adamant about me listening while you were gone,” he continued. “And… after you fell, before the Tracker burst in shouting something in Russian… he cut himself off really quickly.”

“Cut himself off?” Carlos asked, brow furrowing in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“It… it sounded like he was crying, to be honest,” Paul said. “He was stuttering and he couldn’t make out a complete sentence… then he said something about a pre-recorded PSA then he just… got up.” Paul paused, swallowing. “He… he thought you died, I guess.

Carlos was amazed. No, not amazed. Surprised. Incredulous. Cecil was… crying over him? Because he thought he was dead? He stood there, leaning against the truck, his eyes wide. He had no words, nothing to really say. He wet his lips briefly and rubbed at his chest, the fabric covering it caked with dried blood.

“Um… Paul, I think I’m going to… take you back to the lab, actually,” he said, unclipping the scanner from his belt and switching it off before setting into the back of the truck. Paul watched him, brow furrowed. “Why? Do we need to go back in there? Take readings? Do… anything?” Carlos shook his head, walking over to open the drivers’ side door. “No, I… I think we’ve got all the information we need, actually. I just... I need you back at the lab to... to put away this equipment and write up a quick report for me. You saw the city, right?”

“Well, yes, but-”

“Then, you’ve got everything you need. Come on.” Carlos had climbed into the truck and sat in the drivers’ seat, but made no move to turn on the engine right away. He pulled out his cell phone, however, and tapped out a message to Cecil’s personal phone.

“ _Meet me in the Arby’s parking lot when you get a chance. I need to see you. _”__

__*_ _

__“ _Good night, brave Tracker. Good night. I thought you were one thing and you were another. It is likely I will learn nothing from this. Oh! Message on my phone…Carlos wants to see me. He says to meet him at the Arby’s parking lot. Um… I am not sure what scientific exploration now needs the services of my radio audience, but I will dutifully go, dutifully meet him._ ”_ _

__The radio was quietly broadcasting from inside Carlos’s truck as he perched on the back of the now empty flat bed. He had changed out of the bloody shirt and sat with his hands folded and his back arched, leaning over his knees as his eyes watched his feet swing idly back and forth. He had taken a short shower once he had gotten back from the lab, and patched up the small network of wounds he had received from the attack- nothing too serious, thank goodness. And now he was beneath the clear desert sky- clear except for the myriad of stars and constellations were starting to appear in the slowly darkening sky, and the strange hovering lights above the dim Arby’s sign that Carlos still had no explanation for. He chewed on his lower lip distractedly, his mind wandering back to Cecil._ _

__According to the bit of broadcast that he caught on his and Paul’s drive back to the lab, and Paul’s recap of what he had heard earlier, Cecil had planned some sort of festivity for Carlos, celebrating his full year in Night Vale. There had been a trophy involved, apparently, that Cecil had been very excited to give him once Carlos got to the station. However, when Carlos was unable to answer Cecil’s message (which had been the missed call Paul had told him about before his excursion) Cecil had gotten upset, though he had claimed he wasn’t, about the fact that Carlos would not be able to attend the celebration. He had been reporting unwaveringly however on Carlos going down into the underground city, and his tone had only changed after he received the news of Carlos being attacked. That’s when his voice wavered, when he began to stutter, when he apparently shoved away the microphone and threw down his headset to get up out of his chair and excuse himself from the broadcast._ _

__No one, aside from his parents and grandmother on a few occasions, had been so concerned for Carlos’s wellbeing. Granted, this was his first true near death experience and it happened to be a leading story for a major news outlet, but no one had ever cried over him. Especially no one like Cecil._ _

__Cecil who said he loved Carlos. Cecil who gushed about Carlos on the radio. Cecil who leapt at the chance to speak to Carlos even for a few moments. Cecil who got audibly upset about Carlos not answering his message to come celebrate a year of working in the strange city of Night Vale._ _

__Cecil who was… riding a bike toward the Arby’s parking lot, his oxygen tank strapped into a basket on the back of the frame._ _

__Carlos sat up, raising an eyebrow. He could’ve sworn Cecil had a car, and the Arby’s was near the edge of town while the station was closer to the center. How could he ride a bike all the way here while his broadcast was simply taking an intermission? He decided against questioning the circumstances further, as Cecil had ridden up to him and slowly gotten off the bike, grabbing the oxygen tank and propping the bike against the truck. “What is it?” He asked quickly, sounding slightly out of breath as he approached Carlos, tugging the tank behind him. “Wha- what danger are we in? What mystery needs to be explored?”_ _

__Carlos stared at him incredulously, finding himself speechless. Night Vale had been making him wordless lately, or rather, Cecil had been. He wet his lips slowly as his eyes fell, and he sighed. “Nothing,” he finally admitted, and it was true, for once. There was nothing happening- or really, there was nothing that was causing an immediate problem with the town or its citizens. Nothing Carlos would have to worry about, anyway. “After everything that happened,” Carlos continued. “I… I just wanted to see you.”_ _

__Now Cecil was silent, his bright eyes wide and his cheeks flushed. Carlos gave him a weak smile and he looked up over the skyline again, straightening his back._ _

__“Oh?” He heard Cecil say, his voice a bit higher and a little shaky. Carlos tilted his head, letting out a long, slow breath. “I… I used to think it was setting at the wrong time,” Carlos said, nodding toward the orb of light that was slowly dropping over the horizon. “But… then I realized that… time doesn’t work in Night Vale. And that… none of the clocks are real.” Carlos chuckled awkwardly, running a hand through his hair. Cecil had slowly walked over and positioned his tank so he could hop up and sit beside Carlos on the back of the truck, looking over at him. Carlos glanced up at him briefly and looked back out over the sky. “Sometimes… things seem so strange, or malevolent,” Carlos tried to explain, his eyes falling. “And then you find that, underneath… it was something else altogether,” Carlos lifted his eyes and turned his head to look over at Cecil, giving him a slight smile. “Something… pure, and innocent.” Carlos finished, shrugging._ _

__Cecil smiled at Carlos, a kind of smile that seemed private, a smile that no one else got to see unless they were… important. “I know what you mean,” Cecil replied quietly. Carlos looked up at him and shrugged, looking out over the sunset again. A comfortable silence fell over the two of them as the sky darkened further and the lights above the Arby’s grew brighter. Carlos lifted his head to examine them closer; Cecil did the same. Carlos bit his lip softly before slowly reaching over, placing his hand gently down to cover Cecil’s knee. He felt Cecil tense slightly, then relax almost instantaneously, and then he felt a soft weight on his shoulder- Cecil’s head. They remained quiet, sitting in the back of Carlos’s truck, looking up at the night sky. Carlos broke the silence._ _

__“Listen, Cecil… I really am flattered by all of the… comments you make about me on your show- how you… think I’m perfect and wonderful and beautiful and… all of that, but you need to realize that-”_ _

__“You’re not looking for anything like that,” Cecil said softly. Carlos blushed looking down at him. Cecil lifted his head, a slight, sad smile gracing his sharp features as he shrugged. “I know, Carlos. I… I know everything, remember? It’s… easy to pick up on things after a year.” Cecil attempted to clear his throat, then coughed into the crook of his arm. He slid out of his seat and coughed again before nodding slightly. “I can… assure you that I feel the same,” he said, grabbing the handle of the tank. “Well… not really, I guess. But… I feel in a… similar way, I guess.”_ _

__“Cecil…”_ _

__“I should go,” Cecil said, looking over at his bike. “The break can’t last forever.”_ _

__“I can give you a ride-”_ _

__“No, no, it’s quite alright. And… thank you.”_ _

__“For what?” Carlos asked, truly confused as he shrugged slightly. Cecil smiled, setting up his bike again and sliding the tank back into the basket. “For thinking of me after you almost died,” he said, chuckling. “It’s… quite the compliment, actually.” And with that, Cecil climbed up onto his bike again and was riding down the road. Carlos watched him, breathing slowly. He didn’t get up himself until Cecil was completely out of sight, then he got into the truck to head back to the lab._ _

*

“ _One year later. One year since he arrived. He put his hand on my knee and said nothing. And I knew what he meant. I felt the same. I leaned my head on his shoulder. We understand the lights. We understand the lights above the Arby’s. We understand so much. But the sky behind those lights — mostly void, partially stars? That sky reminds us we don’t understand even more. Good night, Night Vale. Good night._ "


	5. IV.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was so late!! Hopefully I'll be back to writing on a schedule again!!
> 
> This chapter is basically "First Date" from Carlos's point of view- and I had to change a few things dialogue wise because of how this AU is written, but if you listened to First Date and read the chapter at the same time, they'd be quite similar.

It had been just a touch under one month since the incident at the bowling alley, and Carlos was pacing the lab, running his hands through his tangled hair. Paul was sitting near the counter beside Andrew, who was groaning and rolling his eyes, Sheila was at the community college teaching a seminar on proper bloodstone rituals, and Darla and James were attending said seminar. “Just call him already,” Andrew said, looking up at Carlos. “He’s probably been dying to talk to you for weeks.”

“Do you think he’s busy? Or that he wants me to call? O-or is he going to call first?” Carlos stammered. Andrew groaned again. Paul rolled his eyes at him and stood up- Carlos noticed him tug his hand out of the grip Andrew’s fingers had on it. In any other circumstance, he would’ve found himself grinning fondly- he’d been waiting for those two to sort things out, and he also had a bet going with Sheila that he just won- but right now, he was far too nervous to pay attention to anything other than the task at hand. “Carlos, it’s okay,” Paul said, walking up to Carlos. “What’s with your sudden interest in Cecil anyway?” 

Carlos stopped pacing, standing still and awkward in the center of the lab. Where did the unexpected interest come from? Did it come from the conversation they’d had in the back of Carlos’s truck last month? Or had it always been there, since Carlos’s first encounter with the radio host, and the feelings were just unbeknownst to him? In any case, however, there were feelings- romantic or otherwise- and they weren’t planning on stopping soon. And like any other scientist, he thought it best to delve deep into the problem in order to conduct an experiment on how to fix it. And that experiment involved Carlos calling Cecil. It involved him calling Cecil for personal reasons. 

To ask him out.

On a date.

“How do I even approach this? What does he even like- or what does he seem to like, anyway?” Carlos sighed, exasperated

“You could always talk to Old Woman Josie,” Paul suggested with a shrug, looking over at Andrew for reassurance. Andrew lifted an eyebrow but nodded, getting to his feet. “Yeah, that could work. If anyone knows anything about Cecil, it’s Josie.”

“Is she his grandmother or something?” Carlos asked, looking between the two men. Andrew looked over at Paul and shrugged, and Paul returned the gesture. “Um… we aren’t… totally sure, actually.” Paul said, looking up at Carlos. Andrew nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think… anyone really is.” Carlos looked between the two of them and sighed, running a hand through his hair. “She might be?” Paul tried, smiling awkwardly. Carlos stood with his hands on his hips, his eyes on the tile floor. The lab was quiet for a moment before he nodded slightly, shrugging out of his lab coat. “Where does she live again?” He asked, hanging the coat on a nearby stool. “By the… by the car lot, right?” Paul and Andrew nodded simultaneously. Carlos nodded back, walking toward the front door and grabbing his keys from the one of the brass hooks fastened to the wall. “I’ll be back later.”

*

Carlos knocked timidly on the tin door to Josie’s trailer, his truck parked a little ways away. He’d found himself covering his eyes with his arm, as the golden light that surrounded the woman’s home was far brighter than the sun, and the lenses of his glasses only magnified it into his eyes. The porch he was standing upon reminded him vaguely of his abuela: there was a small table with a few chairs positioned around it, and a vase with dry flowers was in the center of it. Above the door, there hung a light from the awning, which was displaying a strong, obsidian light. The one the black angel changed, no doubt, Carlos thought to himself.

The door slowly creaked open, and Carlos was greeted by an impossibly tall figure, with several pairs of tangling and gangly arms, and whose lower half was blocked by long tattered off-white cloth. Its mouth went vertically down its face, with several tiny blinking eyes on either side of it. Carlos swallowed, folding his hands behind his back. “Um… is… Josie around?”

He heard a deafening static, and saw the several jagged teeth between the angel’s lips rotate like a saw, and it drifted out of sight. It was quickly replaced by a short, stout woman, with heavily wrinkled, dark skin- received from many years spent in the desert, no doubt- and small kind eyes behind a pair of round, thick glasses. She was wearing a tattered, pale pink apron dotted with small white flowers, and had a pair of knitting needles in one hand. Her greying hair was piled up on top of her round head in the shape of a bun. “Can I help you, dear?” She asked, her voice surprisingly deep and strong. Carlos cleared his throat and smiled slightly, folding his hands behind his back. He felt strangely comfortable with the old woman- probably because she reminded him of his abuela. “Um, yes… are you Josie?”

“This is she.” She said, nodding slowly.

“Um… I’m Carlos-”

“Oh, so you’re Carlos?” Josie chuckled, flashing a bright grin. “Oh, my boy has told me all about you. You’re the scientist, right?”

“Oh- uh… yes, I am- is your boy…”

“Cecil, yes, dear.”

“So, you are his grandmother?”

“Oh, no, definitely not.”

Carlos let out a hiss of breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding. He shouldn’t have been expecting a straight answer- he’d been living in the town a year and yet he was still trying to think logically about everything he came across. “I…yes, I see. Er… can I talk to you about him, actually?”

“Oh, certainly, dear. Come right in.” She said, nodding to him and stepping out of the doorway, holding out a thin arm to wave him in. Carlos nodded slightly and stepped passed her into the trailer.

It was a striking resemblance to his abuela’s home- there was a layer of shaggy carpet on the floor, and the wallpaper was faded. On the walls were several frames holding several pictures of several people, and a small glass case filled with antiquities was hanging beside the door. The kitchen was to his right and was small, with a small fridge and an oven, which was emitting waves of heat. The whir of an air conditioning unit provided sound in the small space, as well as a record player beside a couch, which crackled as what sounded like twenties music played from the bell. It appeared to be an average and completely ordinary old woman’s home, aside from the enormous floating figures that emitted a deafening static noise when you attempted to speak to them.

Josie shut the door to the trailer and hobbled in, humming softly. An angel hovered in from the kitchen to trail behind her, then sat beside her on the couch. “Now, dearie,” she asked as the angel handed her a small basket filled with multicolored yarn. She handed a bundle of yarn to the angel and picked up what appeared to be a sweater, then her nimble fingers began to twist the needles methodically. “What would you like to know about my Cecil?”

“Well…” Carlos began, then cleared his throat, sitting down beside Josie and folding his hands. “Um… a lot of things, actually. Too many things for one afternoon, most likely.”

“Well, then, what’s on your mind right now?” Josie asked, a smile coming to her face as she worked. Carlos looked at her for a moment, then up at the angel, who appeared to be extremely content to help the old woman with her knitting. “I guess… right now, I guess I’m wondering what your relationship is to Cecil? You said you weren’t his grandmother- are you his… aunt or… or anything blood related or…”

“When I was a little girl- you know, back when dinosaurs walked the earth,” she chuckled, shaking her head fondly. “My family and the Palmers were very close. I knew Cecil’s great grandparents very well, actually. Very good family friends.” She hummed happily. “Ah, yes. I remember dinner parties with Scot and Lanie Palmer… my mother would cook with Lanie and my father would talk politics and sports with Scot- this was before we had the faceless old woman and a five headed convict dragon running for mayor, might I add… then came Adelaide and Eustace- Cecil’s grandparents- another splendid set of people. Adelaide was actually a vegetarian, so we didn’t have dinner often, but Eustace would come over to play cards with my father and Adelaide began to teach me how to knit and got me into opera… then there were Cecil’s parents, Amelia and… and…” Josie paused, her fingers stilling. She tilted her head back, trying to remember. Carlos sat patiently, brow furrowed slightly. “You know, I don’t quite remember his father one bit. He… he wasn’t in the picture much for the boys-”

“Boys?” Carlos asked, leaning forward slightly with interest. Josie hummed softly and nodded. “Well, a few years before Cecil, there was Simon- his brother. Poor boy- his friends always asked him where his father was… all he wanted was for him to be there. And then the man had the nerve to show up and leave again.” Josie smiled sadly. 

“Simon wasn’t accustomed to coming here for a while,” she continued. “Amelia often came over to cook with me or to catch up and she would bring him with her. He was sweet as sweet could be, yes, but he was quiet. He started coming over more often after she became pregnant with Cecil. Poor dear- her husband showed up for just under two months and left again. Not even sure he even knew Simon’s name. 

“There were some… problems with the pregnancy, which gave Amelia some grief. Simon didn’t want to be around that, so he came to see me for the first few months. Then the baby came, and he… stopped coming to see me as often. Said he was spending time with friends, which made me happy- he’d always had trouble making friends. Then, he stopped coming all together. Amelia started coming over with little Cecil… I remember when he was just a toddler and he was so excited to rummage through my old dusty boxes of bloodstones. Then he got older, and his father came round again.

“Poor Amelia. She… she got sick after that. Not physically, of course- physically, she had the potential to be a very healthy woman. But there’s no proper medicine legal in Night Vale to help that poor woman’s mind. Simon grew distant from her, and I think that only worsened the issue because he only reminded her of her husband. Cecil tried his best to connect with her, and reach out to her, and I’m sure Amelia tried to return the affection but it just wasn’t in her heart. So he came to see me.” She began to frown. “I remember one day very much, actually… he came to me, happy as ever. He was… maybe eleven. It was just like any other day- he told me about school, and boy scouts, and his best friend Earl- they were quite the pair, but that’s a story for another day- and then his voice changed. He said something about how Simon never talked to him, and how he always teased him probably more than how a brother should tease, and he made fun of him and Earl with his own friends Steve and Simone- both very nice kids, still nice kids, Steve Carlsberg is a delight, no matter what Cecil says on the radio- and how his mother came home from a weekly bloodstone mass and she… wouldn’t speak to him either. And she covered up all the mirrors in the house. Then locked herself away in her room. I asked him when she did that, and he said about three days ago. He’d been… making himself dinner, and essentially just… taking care of himself. Simon was never around to help him, so he was alone. I made him dinner for the next few nights- no boy should have to do things like that for himself at such a young age.

“Then he became an intern at the radio station, and boy, was he excited. His mother was still estranged, poor woman, but he made the best of things. Then, when poor Leonard passed, Cecil took his place. He’d grown up into a man so fast, and I’d become so old. I don’t even know when it happened,” she laughed softly, shaking her head. “We were on the local bowling team together, him and I. Headed straight for the championship when his condition got the best of him. He wanted to keep the team together so badly, but… his poor little heart just couldn’t take it.”

“Wait, what is his condition, exactly?” Carlos said finally. “He carries around an oxygen tank, so I figured maybe some sort of lung issue…?”

“Oh, well, I’m not the person you should be asking about that,” Josie said, chuckling as she continued to knit. “I’m sorry, I think I got a little carried away and forgot what your question was, dear. You wanted to know about Cecil, right?”

“Um… well, yes, but… thanks for the story anyway… I think- anyway, I guess I came over to ask what Cecil… likes and what not. You said he had a friend, Earl? Could I talk to him, maybe?”

“Oh, I don’t think anyone’s talking to Earl, dear- don’t you remember? Earl Harlan, the Boy Scout leader? He traveled with Frankie and Bartie to whatever realm Eternal Scouts are sent to.”

“Oh,” Carlos said. He vaguely remembered the incident; he knew about the Boy Scouts and their changed hierarchy in Night Vale, but he never had the chance to meet the scout leader, apparently. “Well… what do you know?”

“Cecil can be very serious on the outside,” Josie began to explain. “He’s got a very long and confusing past weighing him down. There are a lot of questions he doesn’t like to answer, not because he doesn’t think you’ll look down on him for them, but he’s ashamed of the answers himself. But, that’s not my place to interfere,” Josie’s hands stilled again, then she crossed her legs slowly and looked up at Carlos. “Why do you want to know, anyway?” She asked, arching an eyebrow and smirking knowingly. Carlos blushed softly. “Er… well… I-I…” Josie chuckled, and reached over to squeeze Carlos’s knee in a very motherly way. “Dear, he adores you. I’m sure that no matter what you talk about, he will be all ears.”

“I-I… um…”

“Don’t be so tense,” She said, wagging a finger at him before continuing to work on her sweater. “Just call him up or stop by the station or whatever your plan was. I’m sure he’ll be pleased with whatever you wanted to do.”

Carlos looked at her for a moment- the record had stopped playing a while ago, but she didn’t seem to notice or care, and the angel was looking fondly down at the pile of colorful yarn in its lap. “Um… yes, I…” Carlos cleared his throat, and slowly got to his feet. “Thank you, Josie. You’ve been… er… you’ve been very helpful, actually.”

“Anytime, dear. I hope all goes well.” 

Carlos found himself smiling softly; Josie lifted her head and smiled back. Carlos gently patted her shoulder before showing himself the door. As he stepped out, he heard Josie sigh dreamily.

“Ah. Young love.”  
*

“Cecil, I’m… I’m calling for… f-for personal reasons… I would like to know if y-you would… gah!” Carlos sighed, falling back onto his mattress and draping his arm over his eyes.  
How hard could asking someone out on a date possibly be? Sure, he didn’t have much experience in this field- he’d had boyfriends before, but none of them seemed to work out for one reason or another (that reason usually being Carlos’s aversion to anything more sexual than closed mouth kissing, and that was only okay in some situations). Come on, Carlos thought to himself, pulling his phone from his pocket. He closed his eyes for a moment, resting the phone against his forehead before sitting up and taking a deep breath. “Okay… okay. I can do this.” He stood up and bit his lip softly, then he scrolled through the small list of contacts to find Cecil’s phone number. Just as he found himself about to call, however, Paul burst in through his door, hair a wreck and eyes wild behind a pair of plastic safety goggles.

“Carlos! You have to come look at the readings Sheila just sent me from the edge of town- there’s some sort of… energy or a force heading straight for town-“

“U-uh, yeah, of course, I’ll… I’ll be right there.”

*

“ _Hello?_ ” Sang Cecil’s voice into Carlos’s ear. After discussing the strange force approaching the town and deciding that it may or may not be dangerous and that they would keep an eye on it, Carlos finally swallowed hard and called up Cecil. But, the actual asking him out part was easier in theory, because the moment Carlos heard Cecil’s voice, he froze up again and his mouth dried.

“H-hi, Cecil,” Carlos finally managed to say, his hand clenching and unclenching anxiously.

“ _Oh, hello, Carlos!_ ” Cecil said; Carlos could practically hear the smile in his voice. “ _To what do I owe this pleasure?_ ” 

For a moment, Carlos forgot how to speak. Suddenly, that moment turned into a long minute that felt like an eternity. He snapped out of it when he heard Cecil clear his throat. “ _You… you still there?_ ” He asked.

“Yes!” Carlos said all too quickly and a bit loudly. “I-I mean… yes, I’m still here.” Think of something to say, idiot! “Er, I called to uh… to let you know that a strange energy force is approaching Night Vale at an alarmingly quick rate, and it’s nothing like normal, natural energy, so we should uh… we should be on the lookout for that…”

“ _O-oh! Well, yes, that sounds… terrifying and fascinating, like most scientific things._ ”

That’s not why you called, you idiot, just spit it out! Carlos’s mind screamed at him. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Um… and also, for… for personal reasons.”

“ _Personal reasons?_ ” Cecil said excitedly. “ _What sort of personal reasons?_ ”

“Well… I… I’ve been thinking a lot- that’s… that’s my job, that’s what a scientist does- I mean… I’ve been thinking about… last month. About what happened at the bowling alley, and… and what we talked about…”

“ _Oh?_ ” Cecil absolutely purred. Carlos’s face flushed.

“Yes, I have, and er… well… I thought that maybe you would… you would like to maybe…”

“ _Whatever it is, yes!_ ” Cecil said quickly, causing Carlos to jump slightly. Then he heard Cecil clear his throat awkwardly. “ _I-I mean… what did you have in mind?_ ”

“Dinner, maybe?” Carlos said, scratching the back of his neck. “But I can’t cook to save my life, so maybe a… restaurant?”

“ _Oh, well, that sounds absolutely lovely! I know just the place, too!_ ”

“Oh. I… well, great,” Carlos said, repressing a sigh of relief as he smiled slightly. “I can pick you up at five thirty? Or do you have a broadcast today?”

Carlos suddenly heard a tinny voice behind Cecil, but he couldn’t make out what it said. Cecil was quiet for a moment and he sighed before returning to the conversation. “ _Er… how about six actually? I’ve… I’ve some things to attend to._ ” He said.

Carlos nodded briefly, then stopped when he remembered that Cecil couldn’t see him. “Right, yeah, of course. I should look into that… energy wave, too, while I’m at it. I’ll see you at six.”

“ _You can pick me up right from the station,_ ” Cecil said, his voice chipper again. “ _I’ll see you in a few hours!_ ”

“Right, right… I… see you soon.” Carlos stammered, smiling awkwardly at the cell phone. The line clicked and went silent. Carlos sighed, sliding his phone into his pocket and rubbing his face tiredly.

“I’ve got a date,” he said softly to himself before nodding slightly, swinging his arms back and forth as he paced around the bedroom. “I’ve… I’ve got a date.”

*

When Carlos arrived at the station at six, he definitely hadn’t been expecting what he saw. Sure, he was aware of Cecil’s… strange fashion sense- if strange was even a strong enough word for it- but he hadn’t been expecting to see the other man wearing burgundy cowboy boots, a dark blue- was that a tunic? Or just a big shirt? – With two light stripes on the end of each sleeve, and a pair of pants that looked like he’d just skinned a large animal. He was still toting his oxygen tank behind him, but he had the biggest grin on his face. Carlos smiled slightly at him as he walked out of his office, then glanced down at himself- he was still wearing his lab coat. Way to go, Carlos. “Hi,” Carlos said, folding his hands behind his back. Cecil swayed slightly. “Hello.”

“You… you ready to go?”

“Yes! Yes, I am. Let’s… let’s go.” Carlos smiled again and nodded, heading for the front door to the station. He politely held it open for Cecil, he smiled at him as he walked past him and towards Carlos’s truck.

“Do you need any, er… help?” Carlos asked as he opened the passenger side door for Cecil. Cecil chuckled softly and shook his head, pulling his tank up and obviously struggling slightly. “No, no,” he insisted, managing to get the tank up into the truck, “It’s not a problem. Just… not too used to cars right now, I suppose. Haven’t ridden or driven one in quite some time.”

“H-here,” Carlos said, quickly, stepping up behind Cecil and gently placing a hand on his back. “It’s a… a big step, be careful.”

“Carlos, you’re very sweet but I assure you, I’m just fine,” Cecil said, though made no move to pull away from Carlos, who gently assisted him up into the truck. Cecil grunted softly as he managed to get into the seat, then positioned the tank between his feet with a quiet sigh. “You okay?” Carlos asked.

“Yeah,” Cecil said, closing his eyes and nodding briefly. He then smiled gently, opening his eyes and looking down at Carlos. “Yes. Thank you.” Carlos returned the smile before shutting the door and walking around to the drivers’ side.

As he pulled out of the studio parking lot, a silence fell over the pair of them. It was uncomfortable yet comfortable at the same time- Cecil was leaning back into the seat and watching the desert go by, the late afternoon sun illuminating his sharp features. “You… you look nice,” Carlos said, looking over at Cecil briefly before turning his attention back to the road, smiling gently. He heard Cecil hum softly. “Thank you,” he said softly. “You do, too.” And then it was quiet again. Carlos drummed his fingers softly on the steering wheel, Cecil nervously rubbed at the soft plastic and rubber handle of his tank. Carlos broke the silence once again, clearing his throat. “Where… where are we going exactly?” He asked, looking over at Cecil again. Cecil sat up and nodded. “Oh! Yes, I… I nearly forgot, er… Gino’s Italian Dining Experience and Grill and Bar.”

“Can’t say I’ve been there. Night Vale sure has a… a thing for Italian food, huh?”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” Cecil said, chuckling. “It’s… nice, I haven’t eaten there in… in a while.” Carlos nodded slightly, watching Cecil looking down and fold his hands in his lap. He remembered what Josie had said a few hours earlier:

_“There are a lot of questions he doesn’t like to answer, not because he doesn’t think you’ll look down on him for them, but he’s ashamed of the answers himself.”_

Carlos decided not to press further. Instead, his eyes drifted to the horizon line, where a patch strange darkness had formed and began to move closer to the town. Carlos swallowed slightly and focused on the road again.

He followed Cecil’s directions to the restaurant, then parked the truck in the lot and climbed out to help Cecil out. Cecil again, tried to refuse his assistance, but Carlos had ended up nearly scooping the other man up like a child, then setting him gently on his feet on the pavement, then pulling the tank out after him and handing it to him with a smile. “You don’t have to do that,” Cecil said, though he was smiling. Carlos shrugged, smiling back. “I want to,” he said, offering his arm to the other man. “Shall we?” Cecil hummed, grabbing the handle of the tank before linking his free arm with Carlos’s. 

Strangely and suddenly, Carlos and Cecil were seated in the dimly lit restaurant. Carlos sat across from Cecil, brow furrowed as he looked around confusedly, then looked up at Cecil, who was looking down at a menu with his head tilted curiously. Carlos then swallowed slightly and leaned back in the booth, looking down at his own menu. It was extremely limited, what with the ban on wheat and its by-products eight months ago, and Carlos had decided on the only thing on the menu- some sort of mushroom dish. Cecil seemed lost, then quickly ordered the same thing. Carlos leaned back against the dark leather of the booth, looking out the window beside them. The sun was just about finished setting, and the dark shadow had moved even closer. “I’ve… been thinking,” he said, tilting his head slightly.

“Uh-huh?” Cecil asked, leaning forward.

Carlos suddenly forgot what he was going for when he started speaking. “Er… yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing lately,” he said, repeating what he’d said earlier. “Thinking. It’s… it’s part of being a scientist. What have you been up to?”

“Rebooting,” Cecil murmured, shrugging and looking out the window. Carlos looked up, arching an eyebrow. “Hm?”

“What?” Cecil said almost as quickly, looking up at him.

“What did you say?”

“I said I’ve been doing a lot of inventory around the station.”

“I could swear you said ‘rebooting’…”

Cecil shook his head. “Nope. Inventory of old tapes with the interns. Not very exciting. Nothing like the life of a scientist.” Cecil smiled slightly. Carlos blushed softly and smiled back, looking down. Their waiter, a heavyset man with a large mustache, came by the table briefly to drop two plates on the table, each of them containing a single mushroom, served in what appeared to be some sort of tomato sauce. “I’m not sure what I expected,” he murmured, prodding the mushroom with his fork briefly.

Well, that’s the Gino’s way,” Cecil explained, shrugging and not making any move to eat either. “Rare and bleeding.” Carlos nodded slowly and cleared his throat, resting his chin in his hand. “So, um… I talked to Josie today. About… about you.”

“Oh really?” Cecil asked curiously, sitting up and folding his hands beneath the table. “What about?”

“Well, I… some of my crew said that she knows you really well, and I… wanted to learn a little bit about you before I asked you out.”

Carlos looked up, seeing Cecil staring back at him with wide eyes and slowly flushing cheeks. “O-oh,” Cecil said softly, still frozen. “That’s… Carlos…”

“I mean, she sort of went off on a tangent, but I wouldn’t want to say anything that would upset you-“

“That’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

Carlos froze, looking up at Cecil, whose eyes had softened as a smile graced his features. “R-really?” Carlos asked softly. Cecil nodded, softly biting his lip. Carlos smiled back, then leaned back against the leather of the booth contently as they carried on conversation.

After quiet conversation and two slices of invisible carrot cake (which Carlos tried to humor Cecil with by “eating”, then Cecil giggled and shook his head, causing Carlos to blush furiously), their waiter had returned- no, wait. Had he? A smoky haze that was roughly the same size and shape as their waiter had returned to take their bill. To Carlos’s surprise, the waiter had given Cecil a thick, heavy brick after Carlos paid the bill, then threw the brick into the window that was beside their table, shattering it. “Where to next?” Cecil asked calmly, smiling as he grabbed the tank and climbed past the destroyed glass, Carlos on his coattails. 

When they had got back to Carlos’s truck, Carlos realized he didn’t have anything planned for after dinner. He was almost considering taking Cecil back to the station, or maybe his apartment? Not like he knew where it was or anything- oh God, would he have to ask Cecil where his apartment was? Would that seem weird? Carlos was sitting silently for what felt like an eternity, until he felt Cecil’s hand graze his shoulder. “You alright?” He asked, that slight, kind smile locked in place. Suddenly, all of Carlos’s anxieties melted away. “Yeah,” he replied, nodding. “I just… I’m not all that great at this… dating thing, I guess.” 

Cecil laughed softly. “Don’t worry. It’s been a while for me, too. We could… go for a walk?” Carlos nodded, thankful that Cecil came up with something do instead of the both of them awkwardly sitting in Carlos’s truck in deafening silence. So Carlos started the truck up again and followed Cecil’s directions to Mission Grove Park.

The park, which Carlos had been expecting to be calm and quiet, was loud and scattered with citizens, screaming and pointing up at the void of the night sky. Carlos was about to suggest they go somewhere else, when Cecil asked him if he wanted to join in the “usual recreational activity.” Carlos didn’t want to say “no” flat out, so instead he told Cecil the full and honest truth- something he hadn’t done in a while with anyone- and told him how he’d been terrified of the starless void enough the previous day, and was a little tired and would prefer to simply enjoy the other man’s company. Cecil blushed at this. 

They walked through the park, once again, in silence, aside from the faint screaming behind them and the sound of the wheels of Cecil’s tank on the pavement. Carlos’s chest began to tighten again, trying to think of something to say, and he simply said- awkwardly and out of the blue:

“If you want, we could do some tests on the trees. I’ve been meaning to do some scientific tests on the trees. They… they seem normal, but given all that I’ve observed in this town, it is a significant chance that they are not.”

Carlos internally smacked himself. He knew less than nothing about botany- that was mostly Paul’s field- and now he was offering to do “tests” with Cecil. On a date. He was pretty sure that scientific procedures didn’t make for good conversation, either.

But Cecil responded with an excited yes, his face almost glowing- not blushing, like Carlos would’ve expected, it literally looked like he was glowing with a soft, purple light. It must’ve been a trick of the light. Nevertheless, the both of them went up to a tree, Carlos kneeling down and pulling a small scanner from the pocket of his lab coat (he was still scolding himself about not changing) and trying to make the “tests on the trees” look as legitimate as possible. Cecil, however, seemed perfectly content with hovering behind Carlos and peering over his shoulder at the scanner. After a moment, Carlos felt Cecil’s cool fingers brush over his cheek and he blushed madly, quickly ducking his head and suppressing a smile that threatened to crack his face in half.

Carlos decided that it was time for the two of them to leave the park when the screaming had ceased and was replaced with the faint static of the buzzing shadows that had seemed to replace all the citizens around them. Carlos helped Cecil into the truck, gently lifting up the tank to him. His face had slacked slightly, but he was still smiling. “So,” Carlos asked as he climbed in himself, starting the truck. “Um… any other ideas?”

“Actually, not that I’m not having a wonderful time, I… I think we should call it a night.” Carlos felt his heart sink slightly- he agreed with Cecil, it had been a lovely evening and it seemed like a good note to end on, but the way Cecil said it seemed a little disheartening. “Oh,” Carlos said, nodding slightly. “Alright. Okay, um… do you want me to take you back to your apartment or…”

“The station, actually? If that’s okay?”

“Oh! Yeah, sure.”

The car ride back to the station was quiet- almost uncomfortably so, aside from Cecil asking if he should file the “Standard End-of-Date Report”, and the woman rushing in front of the truck screaming before being ambushed by a group of the shadow people. Carlos drummed his fingers awkwardly on the steering wheel, eyes darting over to Cecil from time to time, whose eyelids were drooping slightly and his eyes were down. Once they pulled up in front of the station, Cecil looked up and let out a soft breath. “Well,” Cecil said, wetting his lips. “This… this is me.”

“Uh-huh,” Carlos said, nodding awkwardly. Cecil looked over at Carlos and caught his eyes- Carlos shrugged. “I should… probably do something about this… buzzing shadow thing. A few experiments to see if I can… save the town, maybe.”

“Oh?” Cecil asked, albeit a little tired sounding. “Do you need any help with that?”

“No,” Carlos replied, probably a touch too quickly. “Er… well, a scientist is… self-reliant. It’s the first thing a scientist is.”

“Oh.” Cecil said, his face falling. Carlos blushed softly, looking over at him. Then, surprising Cecil and even himself, Carlos had undone his seat belt, leaned over the console, and pressed a soft kiss to Cecil’s lips. Neither of them moved- it was only Carlos’s lips neatly slotted between Cecil’s slightly cold ones. When Carlos pulled back from kissing him, Cecil’s eyes were open wide, and it was plain to see that he was, in fact, glowing. For some reason, it wasn’t unsettling.

“I’ll call you,” Carlos said. Cecil nodded slightly. “Uh-huh.” He replied, then climbed out of the truck, walking up to the station. Carlos stayed in the parking lot for a moment, letting out a long sigh and running his hands through his hair before smiling, then chuckling and starting the truck again to head back to the lab.

_Nailed it._


	6. V.

“Carlos!”

Though it hadn’t been the first time he’d received a rude awakening from one of his coworkers, Carlos was still a bit annoyed with the fact that Sheila not only had to yell, but also smack him on the back of the head when he got distracted from work. “What was that for?” Carlos asked, sitting up against the lab desk and rubbing the back of his head. “You were daydreaming again, boss.” Sheila said, rolling her eyes and picking up the notes Carlos had been working on.

“Daydreaming about his boyfriend, probably,” Darla cooed, clasping her hands together near her chin. Carlos blushed softly, and though he didn’t respond, the others could tell Darla had been correct.

It had been a few weeks since Carlos’s first date with the voice of Night Vale. And oh, what a voice it was. They had talked frequently since then, including last night, where Carlos had called Cecil at six, just after the broadcast talking all about their first date had ended, and the call didn’t end until three in the morning. Carlos had thought he was bad at shutting up- when you got Cecil talking about a topic he was interested in, the man could go on for hours, not that Carlos minded. There was something different about his voice when they talked in person or on the phone as compared to how he sounded on the radio. He still had the deep, smooth voice that everyone was accustomed to, but there was something lighter behind it when Cecil wasn’t talking to the entire town and to Carlos personally. It made Carlos feel like they had something special.

“Yeah, when are you going to see him again?” James asked from where he was leaning against the wall. “Or are you a one date kind of guy?”

“No, I’m-” Carlos caught himself, then stood up, smoothing out his shirt and lab coat. “I don’t want to talk about my personal life at work.”

“Oh yeah, that’s Cecil’s job,” Andrew said with a slight laugh, pulling his arm from around Paul and walking over to a counter to look at a scanner. Carlos blushed further, then turned to Sheila, who was still wearing that knowing smirk she always seemed to have. “I’m sorry for drifting off there. Was up late last night.”

“Yeah,” Sheila said, shaking her head. “We know.”

“You’re not very good at whispering, Carlos.” Paul said, crossing his arms and shrugging as he went to join Andrew’s side. Carlos groaned, covering his face. As he was about to object to his coworkers pestering, Andrew interrupted, waving a hand. 

“Hey, hey, everyone be quiet, wait, something’s not right.” 

Carlos raised an eyebrow and walked over slowly to look at the scanner. It was a radar of the town drawn out in green fluorescent light on the dark screen, a wave of green circling around it constantly. It detected strange bursts or waves of energy- Night Vale had them frequently, so every time something strange occurred on the radar, the scientists all took a glance at it and often decided that it wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary.

But this time, there was one massive flash of light coming from the north of them, towards the center of town. Then, that one area was darker than the rest of the map, every other building giving off the same glow that they always did. “Where is that?” Carlos asked. Paul followed the latitude and longitude maps of the radar, muttered some numbers, then went to the map that described exactly where each building was. “Looks like… the radio station.” 

Carlos’s eyes widened immensely- every other pair of eyes in the room turned to him, as well. “Do you… want us all to go…?” Paul asked timidly, biting his lip. Carlos shook his head slowly, shrugging off his lab coat and hanging it over a stool. “No, it’s fine. I’ll be back.” He quickly turned, grabbing his keys from beside the door and ran out towards his car as fast as his legs would carry him.

*

When Carlos arrived at the station, he was shocked to see no light coming from any window. Usually, the station provided a comforting late afternoon glow- a golden kind of shine breaking through the dark oranges and reds the desert sun gave off. 

Now, it seemed to emit no light, but complete darkness. Once Carlos had parked his truck in the parking lot, he couldn’t stop himself from jumping out and running towards the doors.

In his haste, he managed to crash into another body- it was a shorter young woman, with thick curly hair pulled back in a ponytail, and bright eyes. She was wearing a tartan skirt with the familiar burgundy Night Vale Community Radio shirt, with a nametag pinned to it that read “Dana.” She was holding a flashlight. “Can I help you, sir?” She asked, raising an eyebrow as she smoothed out her shirt and placed a hand on her hip.

“Cecil,” Carlos breathed, looking around frantically. “Where’s Cecil?”

“Um… his office? Why? He didn’t say anything about- hey!”

Carlos had pushed passed Dana and was making his way towards the recording booth. The “On Air” sign was dark, and the light bulb that hung from the ceiling in the booth was out as well. Carlos made his way across the booth to the opposite door, leading to the office. When he tried to open the door, he found it to be stuck. Deciding he wasn’t going to take no for an answer, he gripped the handle tightly with both hands and yanked as hard as he could. The door swung open.

When Carlos stepped into Cecil’s office, he was immediately enveloped in darkness. He squinted, attempting to see something, anything, but to no avail. “Cecil?” Carlos said, looking around pointlessly. “Are you in here?”

“Carlos!”

Suddenly, a bright lilac glow filled the room. Carlos squinted in the direction of the light, then out of the blue, a pair of cold arms had tightly wound around him. Carlos gasped softly, recognizing the thin arms to be Cecil’s, and began to lift his arms to hug back. But he found that he couldn’t quite get his arms around the other man- in the way of his hands were several thick wires, stretched tautly, though the source they were coming from was unbeknownst to Carlos. He settled for resting his hands on Cecil’s hips, which he found to be bare.

“We picked up a power surge at the lab,” Carlos said slowly, hooking his chin over Cecil’s shoulder. “Coming from the station. I got here and everything was dark… I was worried.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you,” Cecil cooed, finally pulling away. Carlos blushed softly. Cecil was wearing a pair of lime green dress pants with orange stripes down the sides of the legs- nothing too surprising at this point- but was missing a shirt and shoes. The purple glow that was providing the only light in the room was coming from beneath his skin. Now that Carlos could get a good look at him, he could see that Cecil‘s bare feet were hovering about six inches off the ground, making him a good deal taller than Carlos. The only thing brighter than his skin were his eyes, which were shining bright like stars. Carlos was speechless. Cecil was… well, he was beautiful, to say the least. But Carlos could barely focus on the impossible beauty in front of him when the scientist in him burst forward.

“What is this?” Carlos asked breathlessly, slowly walking around the suspended Cecil, using much of his strength to not reach out and touch the wires.

“Er… well…” Cecil began, the wires visibly loosening as he lowered himself onto the floor. “That’s kind of a long story.”

“I’d love to hear it,” Carlos said, stepping around Cecil again to face him. Cecil’s grin faded, and the look in his eyes saddened. “Are… are you sure? I don’t want you to be… frightened, or… or something like that-”

“Cecil,” Carlos interrupted, placing his hands firmly on the other man’s shoulders. “You are my boyfriend. I wouldn’t care if you had… six eyes and tentacles or even a birthmark you thought was ugly. I want to know everything about you- in a scientific way and in a relationship way.”

Cecil’s glow brightened, and he smiled broadly, though it almost looked like he was about to cry. “Oh, Carlos,” he sighed, his hand going over his heart. “I’ve never met anyone quite like you.”

The glow of Cecil’s skin quickly faded, leaving Carlos in the darkness once again. Then, the usual dim light of Cecil’s office filled the room, and Cecil was buttoning up a pale pink shirt. “I… apologize if I pause or forget some things- I’m just going off the video memory from the Interface.” Cecil noticed Carlos’s bewildered expression, and Cecil simply waved his hand. “I’ll… explain.” He said, pulling up a chair. Carlos leaned against Cecil’s desk, watching and listening carefully.

“I was fifteen,” Cecil began softly. “I had just gotten an internship here, at the radio station. It was… it was my dream. I listened to the radio every day, I… recorded my own little show on a tape recorder with my best friend- it was like I was destined for the job. I didn’t listen to my brother, who constantly said that I’d never make it in radio, and I tried to ignore my mother losing her mind so I could focus on… well, the radio.

“The first few months were incredible, in all honesty. Even when I was just getting coffee for Leonard, or cleaning the blood off the walls in the intern break room, or tending to station management… I loved every moment of it. Albeit, I thought it was a strange job- nothing like I had envisioned it. Interns were fitted with these little car pieces that Leonard could contact us through, and we rarely even saw Leonard around- we were lucky if we saw him pull out of the parking lot at the end of the day.

“It had been… nearly a year since I started my internship, I think. My mother and brother had disappeared. I spent a little time with Josie, who was always eager to help out, but other than that, I was alone. I was staying late one night at the station because it turned out I was the last intern left, and Leonard called me into his office- this office. He was… he was sick, it was obvious. He told me that… his time was over and someone had to take his place. All the while, this voice was going on about how… his ‘percentage’ was going down. I was terrified. The man I’d looked up to for years was dying at my feet and I couldn’t do anything about it. Then all these… wires came out of the wall by Leonard’s desk, and they wrapped around me like snakes and held me against the wall. Then there was this dark winding shadow on the floor, wrapping around Leonard’s body. I tried to pull away from the wall to get down and help him, then… something covered my head and I couldn’t move anymore.

“The next thing I knew was I was on the floor, Leonard’s body was gone, and I could barely breathe. Then I heard a voice- ‘Welcome Cecil Palmer.’ It was… the Interface-”

“Yes, Mr. Palmer?” A voice chirped. Carlos looked up- a rectangular screen had pushed out of the wall and was glowing a bright violet. Carlos raised an eyebrow; Cecil sighed. “Yes, that. It’s… well, it’s been around longer than Night Vale has. When the city was colonized and the radio station was built, it got built around the energy force that was the Interface and it just… grew from there. You can ask it anything about the town to, or to see anything… that’s how I can report on everything so quickly.

“When Leonard died, I was kind of on my own- learning how to… be the town essentially. The Interface knows everything, so it helped me adjust. The bonding was a rough one…”

“Can you explain it maybe?” Carlos asked, the first thing he’d said since Cecil began talking. “If you’re comfortable with explaining, that is.” Cecil blinked but nodded. “Well… first, the wires that connect to the power source attach to the back, and kind of… well… puncture the skin and make… I guess what you could call ports? Then the power source basically shuts down all bodily functions- the heart stops beating, blood stops pumping, lungs stop breathing… then the blood is electrified and drained and replaced with what could… I guess be described as a liquid power source that the Interface runs on; you’re bonded to the Interface- it becomes a part of you.”

“So… you don’t have blood?” Carlos asked curiously.

“Well, I do have blood, but not like yours. It’s… it’s kind of like… the consistency of human blood, but it can conduct electricity extremely well- if I was to be… struck by lightning, for example, I would most likely short circuit.”

Carlos sat in silence, digesting. Cecil had folded his hands in his lap and his eyes had gone to the floor.

“So… you’re a machine?” Carlos asked. Cecil blushed- or rather, began to glow a faint purple with the electricity in his veins, and his eyes darted away from Carlos. “I… suppose, if you want to think of it that way…”

“If it makes you feel uncomfortable-” Carlos said quickly; Cecil shook his head. “No, no, it’s fine! I guess I kind of am, but I was human before. And, I’ve been kind of changing.”

“How so?”

“Well, I… suppose it started when you showed up. That’s when the glowing started, at least. Well, I can do that voluntarily if I want to, but… whenever I thought of you, it would happen. And, when I would power down… I had visions of… o-of you-”

“Wait, wait… you were blushing and dreaming because of me?”

“Is that weird?” Cecil asked timidly, twiddling his thumbs.

“Er… well, I suppose under different circumstances, maybe, but...” Carlos sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. Cecil bit his lip. “I would understand if you wanted to leave.” Cecil said softly after a few moments. Carlos looked up quickly, then reached over, taking both of Cecil’s hands in his own. “Okay, so it’s not the most average relationship I’ve been in,” he began. “Or… well, really it’s the only relationship I’ve been in and the other party just happens to be… not entirely human.”

Cecil’s eyes fell.

“But,” Carlos quickly continued, squeezing Cecil’s cool, metallic hands tightly. “That doesn’t mean that I feel any differently about you. I mean… when we first met, and you were coughing and choking and you needed another oxygen tank and there were wires shooting out of you and… well, yes, I was scared. Because I didn’t understand. But now, you’ve explained how you… well, how you work for the most part. And I’m not afraid of you, Cecil. To be honest, if I’m afraid of anything right now, it’s… it’s losing you.” 

Cecil’s glow brightened as he looked back up at Carlos, squeezing his hands. “Really?” He asked. Carlos smiled and nodded. “Really.” He lifted one of Cecil’s hands, lips brushing gently over his knuckles. Cecil finally smiled, holding onto Carlos’s hands tightly. “Thank you,” he said. Carlos lifted an eyebrow. “For what?”

“For… being the first person to make me feel human again.”

Cecil then began to explain the power surge Carlos and his coworkers had detected. He’d managed to walk around the studio without his oxygen tank for fifteen minutes, a new personal record for himself. Of course, this led Carlos to questioning why Cecil needed the oxygen tank at all.

“Well, first of all it isn’t an oxygen tank. Something went… wrong in the bonding process for me.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I told you how I tried to pull away from the wires to get to Leonard, right? Well, when I did that, the wires came loose from the ports that had just been made in my back. Not all of the Interface’s information that had been transferred to old hosts was given to me. So… I’m not able to stay unplugged from the power source for very long. Even the tank is just an extension- it runs out of fuel after a few hours. If I’m unplugged for too long, my… my lungs could fill up with the electric fluid that constitutes as blood and eventually collapse.”

Carlos’s eyes widened, staring back at Cecil with surprise. Cecil noticed his discomfort and quickly reached over to take Carlos’s hands. “No, no, but it’s okay,” he said quickly. “The alternate power source- the tank I carry around keeps everything circulating like it’s supposed to. It just… runs low and I need to plug back in. Nothing too serious has every happened.” Carlos, for some reason couldn’t find comfort in this. Cecil frowned. “Are…are you okay?” he asked Carlos sighed softly, running a hand through his hair… “I… you… you’re running on borrowed time. You’re delaying the inevitable, Cecil.” Cecil’s eyebrows knitted together and he shrugged. “Aren’t we all?”

*

Carlos stayed with Cecil for about two hours, asking him any questions that came to mind- which were many. But Cecil seemed happy and willing to answer all of Carlos’s queries. Cecil didn’t remember much of his childhood, or really anything before bonding with the Interface, but the Interface had his memories stored away somewhere Cecil couldn’t access due to his attempt at breaking the bond fifteen years ago. He knew he had a mother, but he often forgot he had a brother, and he barely even knew he had a father.

Cecil was confused; as confused as any all-powerful, all seeing super intelligence would be. And there was only so much Carlos could help him with. Sure, Carlos was a scientist, and his job was to learn the unknown and share his findings with anyone who would listen, but now could he help what could only be described as a robot with missing data? He would try his best, of course-like any good boyfriend would do.

Oh. Yeah. There was that word again. Boyfriend. Carlos could still barely comprehend the fact that he, nerdy, asexual, neurotic Carlos, was the boyfriend of something- no. No, someone… so miraculous. Miraculous and wonderful and incredible and so many other words that Carlos couldn’t even begin to fathom, nor could he ever, most likely. He could fill research paper after research paper, science journal after science journal, novel after novel about Night Vale and its inhabitants and its occurrences- hell, he could probably even write about the several, albeit unethical, toppings used at Big Rico’s, but he could never be able to write a single letter about the entity that was Cecil Palmer. Cecil was like a constant in a world completely taken by- things that changed constantly, and without warning-but Cecil? He was a constant, something that wouldn’t change, something that couldn’t change, something that Carlos wouldn’t allow to change.

Because as strange as Cecil was, he was probably the only thing in the little desert town that made a lick of sense to Carlos. And even that was a stretch, sometimes.


	7. VI.

“ _A lonely heart, a wandering eye, an empty stomach, a shoulder to cry on. This is what makes us, us. Welcome to Night Vale._ ”

It was one of Carlos’s rare days off- or really, it was a Saturday and none of his crew really wanted to come in to work, and honestly, Carlos wasn’t completely feeling the desire to work today. He’d gotten dinner again with Cecil last night, or rather, Carlos went up to the station with the lunch he’d forgotten to eat with his secret laptop he’d managed to have smuggled into the city and carefully asked Cecil’s permission to plug into his mainframe in order to attempt to find the files that Cecil was unable to access in hopes of recovering his memory. His attempts proved to be unsuccessful, however, as he could not access any files passed the date that he assumed Cecil became the Host. Nevertheless, he was tired from the ordeal, and didn’t get much sleep that night, as his mind was far too busy with thoughts of helping his boyfriend that didn’t allow him to sleep.

So, he allowed the break for him and his coworkers- it was much needed for all of them, after all, it almost seemed as if they worked nonstop in all honesty- and he was lying down in his bedroom, the radio on his desk playing Cecil’s show softly. Carlos had one hand folded behind his recently showered hair, and the other over his stomach, with one leg hanging off the edge of the bed. His eyes were closed as he allowed the Host’s voice to wash over him- it was as though he was in the room with him, simply telling him about the town’s day. It was… well. It was comforting.

“ _The Night Vale Medical Board wants to know, are you heart-healthy? How healthy is your heart? Have you ever checked? Doctors recommend checking your heart at least once a year. Simply separate the skin on your upper chest, and break open the ribs. Here’s a tip: if you don’t have a bone saw handy, just sterilize any old electric saw you might have in your work shed._ ”

Admittedly, some things were less comforting than others.

At some point, Carlos found himself dozing off, as he heard the peculiar voice of the notorious five headed dragon Hiram McDaniels. Before he knew it, he was snoring up a storm as the dragon began his small campaign announcement.

*

“ _They looked one another in the eyes, they breathed in unison, they smiled politely, intimately, knowingly, until one of them- in fact, each of them, as individuals, decided that the moment had passed, and they parted ways…_ ”

Carlos snored himself awake, waking and sitting up with a start. He hadn’t slept long, he assumed, he never really was sure of time passage anymore, but the broadcast was still going on, at least, which was a good indicator that he hadn’t slept too long. He ran a hand through his now dry hair and rubbed his eyes as he tuned back into the broadcast.

“ _… The witnesses said that some low-flying yellow helicopters began dropping orange leaflets onto the city streets. The leaflets read: StrexCorp Synernists, Inc. Look around you: Strex. Look inside you: Strex. Go to sleep: Strex. Believe in a smiling God. StrexCorp. It is everything._ ”

Carlos looked over at the radio, thinking for some reason that it wasn’t Cecil talking through the radio, but Cecil was sitting in the room speaking to him, and that he would have someone to look up at inquisitively. However, it was still just the radio, and behind the sound of fading helicopter blades, he heard something that scared him- at least, more than usual.

“ _Oh… oh no. Uh… dear listeners, we must issue an apology. Those helicopters are completely… safe. Even safer than safe!_ ”

Carlos raised an eyebrow nervously- Cecil didn’t sound right. His voice was quivering, his words sounded unsure and forced.

“ _In fact, StrexCorp recently bought our little radio station from the mysterious, unseen forces who founded it centuries ago…” He laughed uncomfortably. “I’m glad to know that Josie will be okay, and that StrexCorp has come to Night Vale. Rest easy, listeners, knowing that this was all just a simple misunderstanding. But now we fully understand everything that is happening, and we are not misunderstanding anything else at all. We are completely… safe. Stay tuned next for the sound of slow, steady dripping, and occasional screams._ ”

Carlos didn’t need any further indication to know something wasn’t right, and he was out of the room with his keys in hand almost immediately.

*  
When Carlos arrived at the station, there were several yellow vans with tinted filling the parking lot. He quickly jumped out of the truck, almost forgetting to turn it off, and ran into the station. An intern was pressed down into a chair into the lobby and was surrounded by people in clean, pressed, dark suits, and the door to the recording booth was open. Through the window to the booth, he could see several more well-dressed strangers, and that the door to Cecil’s office was open. Suddenly feeling enraged, Carlos burst into the recording booth, attempting to shove past the suited strangers. “What are you doing?” He said angrily as two men grabbed onto his arms and pulled him back, preventing him from getting into the office. “Who are you?”

“Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Said a disinterested sounded voice near him.

“I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers!” Carlos demanded, struggling against the large hands holding him back. “Why are you here? What do you want with Cecil?” There was a long, tired sigh, and a man stepped in front of him. He had dark hair, pushed back and neatly arranged, with skin touched by years of desert sun exposure, and thick eyebrows hovering above completely black eyes. “We are from StrexCorp- we’re working on a merger between Desert Bluffs, the town across the canyon in which our headquarters is situated in, and this little… burgh. Of course the first step of merging the two is purchasing the… uh… what you and others would most likely call the heart or the center of town, which is this sad little radio station. And of course, we’ve been studying it for a while, so we know that the radio host isn’t normal, and we need to… run some completely harmless tests.”

“You’re not testing on anyone, especially not him!” Carlos said, managing to pull one arm free and take a swing at the dark eyed man. The man leaned backwards, causing Carlos’s fist to swing over him as another man grabbed him and pulled him back again. The dark eyed man scoffed, and if Carlos could tell, he would assume he was rolling his eyes. “I’ll roll your eyes right out of your head, you son of a-”

“Get him out of here, boys.” The man said, waving a hand with the equivalent of a yawn, revealing a mouthful of bright white sharp teeth. The men holding onto Carlos yanked on his arms, and practically had to drag him kicking and shouting out of the booth, out of the station, and into the parking lot. They dropped him hard onto the cement, causing him to scrape the palms of his hands to prevent himself from falling face first onto the pavement. “This doesn’t concern you, Mr. Scientist,” one of the men said scornfully as Carlos turned to face them, wiping his hands on his lab coat. “And what if it does, asshole?” Carlos retorted, getting to his feet and facing the two men, both of which loomed over him at least half a foot. He felt far from scared though- the feeling of anger was overpowering any other emotion he had the capacity to feel. Once again, he swung out a fist, attempting to hit the man on the left, but the man grabbed his wrist and forced it down as the man on the right swung, connecting hard with Carlos’s cheek. He stumbled, but forced himself to remain standing. He tried to tear his hand away, but the man’s grip was strong, and he was punched again, this time on the other side of his jaw. Carlos could taste the coppery sting of blood on his tongue. The man holding his wrist actually lifted him about an inch off the pavement, then dropped him onto his knees on the cement. As Carlos attempted to return to his feet, he was met with a swift kick to the stomach, and found himself on the ground, coughing. He received another hard kick, and as he finally got to his feet again, the men were already heading back inside. Carlos wiped a small trickle of blood from his chin and attempted to chase after them and back into the studio, but the glass door was slammed in his face, then locked. He banged harshly on the glass, rapping on the door until his hands began to feel sore, and the force of him clenching his fingers into fists made the scrapes on his palms begin to bleed. At one point, he had contemplated getting back into the truck and driving straight into the studio- he needed to know what was happening in there, if Cecil would even be alright. He wouldn't- no, couldn’t rest until he knew Cecil was okay.

*

Apparently at one point or another, Carlos had sank down the glass paned door to the station in defeat, and had been nudged- or how it felt, kicked, out of the way by what he had figured out to be StrexCorp employees, because he was lying in the sand, his lab coat snagged on the shrubbery against the outer wall of the station, and one lens of his glasses cracked straight down the middle. He groaned softly, pushing himself up to his knees and rubbing at his bruised side, then pulled his jacket off of the bush, most likely tearing a small hole in it, then got to his feet. He wobbled slightly, but then managed to get back to the door and force it open.

The studio was dark and damp and cold- strangely so. The “on-air” sign above the door to the booth was turned off, but it was open, and so was the door to the office. From a distance, the room looked eerie- the usual purple light that filled it was dim, and even through that, you couldn’t see much in the office. “Cecil?” Carlos called, briskly walking into the booth and up to the office door. “Cecil!”

There was a soft creaking, like two pieces of metal scraping passed each other. Carlos carefully stepped into the office, walking slowly, as if he were about to step on something important and break it. “Cecil?” He asked again, his voice softer. Carlos squinted, looking around, before seeing the dim square of light that was the Interface. If he remembered correctly, the adjacent wall to the screen was the one Cecil attached himself to in order to recharge. He walked toward it and fumbled for the small flashlight he kept in his lab coat. He found it and switched it on, and saw something that made him shake. 

Cecil was hanging limply from the wired wall, his head bowed and his arms slack. Carlos heard a soft static noise- whether it was coming from Cecil or the Interface, he was unsure. Amongst the usual tangle of wires was something new- a thicker, fluorescent yellow cord marked with a large orange triangle and a black letter “S” protruding from the center of his back. The yellow cord had replaced a dark purple one that Carlos assumed was part of the original Interface- the cord that Leonard Burton had used, and every other Host before that.

Carlos took a step back, covering up his mouth in shock. How could something like this happen? Why would StrexCorp, whoever they were, need to barge into the humble little radio station and… change what was already there, what already made sense? He took a shaky step closer to Cecil, beginning to lift a hand to lift Cecil’s head, but Cecil suddenly switched back on, his hair mussed, his eyes crazed. “Don’t touch me- don’t touch me- don’t touch me, you disgusting evil little-”

“Cecil!” Carlos quickly interrupted, though he’d pulled his hands away from the other man. Cecil was breathing heavily, staring right at Carlos as though he didn’t even know him anymore. The violet hue of his eyes was darker, with flecks of gold dispersed throughout them. Suddenly, his shoulders slacked and his face calmed- Carlos was relieved that the other man recognized him. “Carlos…” Cecil whimpered weakly. “They… I don’t…”

“Sh, Cecil, it’s going to be okay- let me get you down. Just ask for your alternate power source-”

“I can’t, Carlos,” Cecil said softly, dejectedly. “It… the Interface, it doesn’t hear me anymore- they shut me down, they… Th-they-” Cecil’s voice shook in a way that Carlos didn’t think possible. Cecil was always sure, he was always ready. Now he sounded crushed and defeated. It was heartbreaking to hear someone Carlos saw as so strong feel so… overcome. “Can… can you detach? Do you know?”

“I think someone muttered something about being… fixed, about being better, but Carlos, I don’t know, I don’t know what’s happening-”

With each of Cecil’s outbursts, Carlos noticed that sparks of light and stray short beams of electricity came off of Cecil’s exposed flesh and from the outlets in his back. _If he goes on like this_ , Carlos thought, _he’s going to blow the entire station._ As he came to this sudden realization, Carlos quickly reached up to grab onto Cecil’s shoulders, despite the shocks the scrapes on his palms received. “Cecil, I need you to listen to me, okay?” Carlos began shakily. “You’ve just got to keep calm, okay? I’m going to help you.” Cecil nodded shakily, eyes wide and fearful. Carlos let go of his shoulders and began to rub his palms carefully as he walked around to access the cords holding Cecil against the wall. _Of course, I could just pull out the new cord that StrexCorp installed_ , Carlos thought to himself. _But I don’t want to hurt him anymore…_

“How does the Interface usually disconnect you, Cecil? Do you know?”

Cecil shook his head quickly. “It’s always really… really sudden, I’m not sure…”

“No, no, it’s okay, I promise. I’ll figure it out.”

_Okay then_ , Carlos thought to himself. “Here goes nothing.”

“Wait, what you are-”

Without allowing Cecil to complete his thought, Carlos took hold of the wide base of the yellow cable and yanked. Cecil gasped as the cord disconnected from the port and briefly fell limp. Carlos jumped, but sighed with relief when he saw Cecil’s shoulders twitch and a soft groan. “How are you feeling?” Carlos asked softly, but quickly stepped around the other man when he noticed the other cables slowly drawing back. Cecil fell forward into Carlos’s arms with a sigh, but Carlos could feel him moving, which kept him from worrying. “Car…”

“It’s okay,” Carlos interrupted, helping Cecil up to his feet. “You must be exhausted. Where’s your-” Carlos was suddenly interrupted when Cecil launched himself forward back into Carlos’s arms, holding him tightly and burying his face into his shoulder. “They came in out of the blue during the broadcast,” he whispered as Carlos wrapped his arms around him. “And one of them threatened to… to unplug me from the tank. Another one forced a script in front of me and told me to read it so the listeners would not be worried… th-then they shut off my microphone and a man in a lab coat forced me to access the Interface and… and-”

Carlos shushed him, gently rubbing his back. “It’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it. It must be hard.”

Cecil sniffed and pulled away, making eye contact with the scientist and lifting a hand to touch his cheek. Carlos winced and Cecil retreated. “Did… did they hurt you?” Carlos shook his head, rubbing the swollen bruise the suited man had given him. “Nothing I can’t handle, don’t worry about me. How are you feeling?”

“Not… not any different from usual…” Cecil said, rolling his shoulders back before wrapping his arms around his lithe frame. “They said something about a… corrupted mainframe and… and they disconnected me from the Interface. Carlos, I… I was blind, I couldn’t see Josie or… or you or anything-”

“Cecil, I know you’re afraid, but I need you to remain calm, alright?” Carlos said, reaching out to hold onto his forearms. “I promise you I’ll help you access the Interface again. I can’t promise anything I’ll try will work, but I will do the best I can- everything in my power, to help you see again. But… for now, let’s just get you home. You must be so drained of today…”

“Actually,” Cecil began to counter, looking down at himself. “I feel… more rejuvenated than usual. I don’t feel weak or ill and… and I’m not coughing...”

Carlos arched an eyebrow. “Maybe even though they disconnected you from the Interface, they did benefit you? At least a little bit…”

“Maybe,” Cecil sighed, looking down at his hands. “But it’s like… imagine knowing everyone in your home town. You know their name and their favorite color and their birthday and everything about them, and then one day… you can’t remember anyone- and it’s like you’ve never even met them. That’s… that’s how this feels, Carlos.” Carlos nodded slightly and gently touched Cecil’s shoulder. “I would say I understand, but nothing I’ve experienced compares to something like this. But I can do my best to console you?”

Cecil smiled slightly, looking down. “Yes, you’re… you’re good at making me feel better.” Carlos smiled kindly; Cecil blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I… er… when they came in, my… my shirt-” He weakly gestured to something on the floor. Carlos looked down, bending down to gently pick up a torn piece of bright orange fabric- the back of which was completely shredded. Carlos frowned and sighed, then unbuttoned his flannel shirt. Cecil blushed bright. “Carlos, no, it’s-”

“Completely fine,” Carlos objected, slipping the garment off his shoulders and holding it out to Cecil, revealing a loose heather gray t-shirt across his chest. Cecil hesitantly took the shirt, muttering a thank you as he pulled it on. The garment hung loosely on his frame, but sufficed, and Cecil began to roll up the sleeves to his elbows. “Come on,” Carlos said. “We can go to the lab. I don’t want you to be alone.”

“A-are you sure?” Cecil asked, wringing his wrists nervously. Carlos rolled his eyes playfully and reached out to take his hand. “Of course I’m sure. The worst thing that might happen is my colleagues teasing me- but that’s just how we interact, I promise.”

“Um… I know, Carlos,” Cecil said bashfully, folding his hands behind his back. Carlos cocked his head slightly but found himself chuckling. “Right. Of course.”

*

When Carlos and Cecil arrived back at the lab, all the lights were off, so Carlos simply assumed that his colleagues were either out with other friends, or asleep in the bedrooms in the upper level of the lab. Carlos carefully led Cecil inside, then up the stairs to the bedrooms. When the pair reached Carlos’s room, Cecil froze in the doorway, looking around the small bedroom with almost wonder. Carlos looked up at Cecil, gently touching his arm. “What is it?” Carlos asked.

“Er… it’s nothing,” Cecil responded softly, leaning into the touch. “It’s just... a month or two after you moved here, I… blocked the Interface from accessing what I had assumed were more private parts of the lab. It’s just… it feels strange being in here.” Carlos smiled slightly and squeezed Cecil’s arm gently. “Well, don’t feel strange. You’re safe here.” Carlos went up on his toes and pressed a soft kiss to Cecil’s cheek. “Just make yourself comfortable- I’m going to go and shower.” Cecil nodded compliantly, still wringing his wrists and Carlos dug through the dresser briefly then excused himself to the bathroom.

When Carlos walked out again, clad in sweatpants and a college sweatshirt, Cecil was sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of the bed with his knees pulled up to his chest. Carlos ran a hand through his damp hair, then padded over to kneel down beside him. “Everything okay?” He asked. Cecil sighed softly, shrugging. “Honestly? I… don’t really know. I feel fine, like I’m not going to cough up a lung or shut down entirely, and I’m with you, so of course I feel a lot better than I would if I were alone, but… I just don’t know what to think right now.”

Carlos frowned sympathetically, reaching out to gently touch his cheek. “Well, don’t think right now, then. Just… get some rest, okay?”  
“Carlos?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t sleep.” 

Carlos raised an eyebrow, about to retort, when he realized that Cecil was an automaton, practically a robot- why would he need to sleep? He began to blush brightly and stutter. “Well… rest doesn’t need to have the same connation as sleep, you could just relax and get your mind off of everything that’s happened today, so, I mean-”

“Carlos,” Cecil said, a soft laugh escaping him. “It’s fine. I know what you mean.” Carlos looked up at Cecil and smiled as he noticed the corners of his mouth tug up slightly. Carlos sighed, rubbing his eye briefly before looking up as he heard a knock at the door. He groaned softly and patted Cecil’s shoulder before standing up and walking towards the door. “What is- hey!”

The front of Carlos’s sweatshirt was grabbed and yanked, pulling him out of the bedroom. “Who said you could bring your boyfriend over here?” Said the voice belonging to who yanked him out of the room- Paul. “I thought we all agreed no significant others in the lab!”

“Jesus, Paul, calm down,” Carlos whispered, holding up his hands. “I don’t know if you heard the broadcast or not but it was a rough day- he can’t be alone right now.”

“Yeah, alone in your bedroom, Casanova.” Paul teased, rolling his eyes and placing his hands on his hips. Carlos sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and folding his other arm across himself. “Okay, you know that it isn’t like that- I’m not like that. I wasn’t going to leave him alone. And since when is there a no significant other policy in the lab? For one, we aren’t in the lab, we’re upstairs- it’s practically a dormitory up here. And you’re dating a colleague- if anything, there should a rule against that.”

“Okay, first of all, Andrew and I aren’t dating. I mean, I’m pretty sure we aren’t. And second-”

“Carlos?”

Paul looked over Carlos’s shoulder as Carlos turned around. Cecil was standing in the doorway, his arms awkwardly folded over himself as he looked between Carlos and Paul. “Is… everything okay?” He asked.

“O-oh,” Carlos said, holding up his hands. “Yeah, everything’s fine, Cecil. Sorry, Paul was- well…”

“I’m Paul,” Paul said, extending his hand. Cecil took it cautiously and shook it. “It’s a pleasure.” Paul said, smiling slightly. Cecil nodded and smiled back before pulling back. “Um… Paul’s one of my colleagues, he didn’t know you were here, but… he was just leaving, I believe?”

Paul raised an eyebrow but rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I guess I was. See you in the morning, boss.” Carlos sighed as Paul walked back to his room at the end of the hall, then he turned and took Cecil back into the room. “Sorry about that,” he said, shutting the door and turning back to Cecil. “I thought everyone would be asleep by now.”

“Carlos, it’s… it’s fine, I promise.” Cecil said, smiling slightly and rubbing his arm awkwardly. “I’d love to meet all of your colleagues in person. They seem nice.”

“Well, not tonight. It’s getting late, but I can stay up with you as long as you’d like?”

“No, no, it’s fine. You can go to sleep.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.” 

Carlos sighed softly, reaching out to gently touch Cecil’s cheek and press a soft kiss to the tip of his nose. “Good night, then.”

“Good night, Carlos.”

Carlos hit the light switch by the door then climbed into the bed; Cecil made a move to sit back down on the floor, but Carlos reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Why don’t you lay down next to me?”

“I-is… that okay?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want anyone to walk in and just see you sitting on the floor wide awake… and I don’t mind holding you, as long as you don’t mind, o-of course.” Cecil smiled slightly, and his faint purple blush lit up the room as he sat down on the bed beside Carlos. Carlos opened up his arms and folded Cecil into them, pulling him close.

As he finally began to fall asleep, he felt Cecil’s breathing slow down and his body relax. Even though he didn’t sleep, Carlos felt content knowing that Cecil felt good enough and safe enough to unwind. He also knew that he was going to get back at StrexCorp no matter what.


	8. VII.

Carlos accompanied Cecil to his next broadcast, strictly to help him attempt to access his memory database again. Cecil tried to tell him no, tried to tell him that he didn’t want StrexCorp attacking him, too, but Carlos insisted. He said that since Cecil was temporarily living with him at the moment, having gone back to his old apartment one day and gathered some spare clothes and other essentials (essentials which lacked things that Carlos would’ve expected anyone to have at home, but then again, Cecil wasn’t just anyone). The least Cecil could do was let Carlos help him.

And that was that.

The afternoon that Cecil came back from his apartment and back to the lab, Carlos noticed he was carrying more than just what appeared to be an oversized overnight bag (Cecil’s wardrobe was much more extensive than Carlos’s eight flannel shirts, several t-shirts and a few pairs of jeans.) He was carrying an unlabeled cardboard box, and inside the box was an old-fashioned tape recorder, and a few cassette tapes marked with the words “Cecil radio test: Age 15.” After telling Carlos about the other oddities he’d found in his closet- childhood toys, blood soaked rags, and something about a strange fist-sized gem- he explained that he had no memory of the tapes, considering he bonded to the Interface around the time he was fifteen. Cecil said that the tapes might have useful information on them to help Carlos get back in touch with the Interface and bring back Cecil’s memories. Carlos agreed.

“ _Perhaps you noticed something strange yesterday, and perhaps, you have forgotten it…_ ”

Carlos noticed something as he sat at Cecil’s desk while Cecil spoke into the microphone, his own computer wired into the “updated” Interface, and thus, connected to Cecil. The way that he spoke on the radio was cool, calm, and collected. He got to the news- albeit, sometimes with a little digression- and reported like any other talented journalist. The way he spoke now compared to the way he spoke a year ago seemed so strange to Carlos. A year ago, when he first came to Night Vale, Cecil’s voice was just as cool and smooth, but there seemed to be less feeling behind it. He truly was, for lack of a better term, robotic. Now, there was so much life in him. He was more… human. He got excited about stories that intrigued him, he got annoyed with stories that upset him. He wasn’t biased, of course- well, yes, sometimes he was- but he still showed genuine interest in a lot of the things he reported on.

Carlos thought it was magical.

Cecil had brought the cassette tapes to the studio that day, partially for Carlos to listen to them, and partially to listen to them himself. He explained on the radio almost exactly what he’d explained to Carlos a few nights previous, before playing the first tape.

“ _Hi- Cecil here!_ ”

As the voice of the fifteen year old Cecil began to play, current Cecil immediately began to blush, his eyes wide. Carlos suppressed a giggle- Cecil’s voice had definitely deepened with age, and he spoke a lot slower now. In the tape, he was high-pitched with the occasional voice-crack, and spoke quickly and excited, talking about how his mother had gotten him the tape recorder, and how excited he was about the fact that the tablets at City Hall that said he would replace Leonard Burton one day. As the tape continued, Cecil looked over at Carlos frequently, face darkening with embarrassment. Carlos simply smiled.

“ _The sun is actually cold. It’s cold and empty and all is lost- greetings from Night Vale! How was that? Hold on, hold on, I want to play that back._ ”

The tape stalled and Carlos handed Cecil the next one, softly chuckling as Cecil dropped his head into one hand. Carlos’s smile faded, though, as Cecil began to talk about a strange flickering in the corner of his eye when he started to record. He was confused when the tape became distorted when Cecil began to sing the Night Vale High School fight song, and how he talked about the flickering becoming stronger when he sang. Cecil stopped the tape and began to talk about Leonard, telling the listeners about how he was the radio host before Cecil was, and when he attempted to reminisce on him, he couldn’t find any words- about Leonard, or making the tapes. He played it off as it was nothing, though, and went into a story about the Museum of Forbidden Technologies (which Carlos still kind of wanted to visit with one of his coworkers), then went to the traffic report, and how “ _everything’s looking clear out there today._ ”

After the report, he went back into the tapes.

“ _Cecil again. My brother says that I’ll never make it in radio because my voice isn’t right for it. I need to get more like Leonard, with that perfect radio voice! All high pitched and grating like sand paper… just the way radio voices should be! Um… I’ve been seeing that movement more, even when I’m not recording. It’s like someone is walking towards me, but when I turn, there’s nothing there. And it’s not the Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives in our home because I asked her…_ ”

Carlos found himself listening intently to the tape, his chin in his hand as he tilted his head. He noticed Cecil with his hands folded in his lap, staring down at the spinning gears of the tape in the player. For a moment, he wondered why Cecil was so invested- then he remembered, this was probably the first time Cecil was listening to his past. There was a surge of information from the wires connecting Carlos into the Interface and the screen filled with numbers and data- some of it, he hoped, would be helpful. The current tape ended with something unknown touching Cecil and he stopped the tape. The next one had Cecil going on about how he got the internship at NVCR, the strange things his mother said, and how he wished his brother could be proud of him. When the tape stopped, Cecil said how he didn’t remember having brother, or interning at the station- whether these statements were open ended or directed to Carlos, he did not know. He called for an intern named Jesus to find records of Cecil’s interning at the station, who did not respond, then he remembered that Jesus had never returned from investigating a bottomless pit in the intern break room, which Carlos noted. As Cecil began a message from a sponsor, Carlos began to sift through the information the Interface had somehow provided him with. The only thing Carlos could think of as to why he suddenly got the information was that Cecil was, whether he knew it or not, trying to access his memories when he began to listen to the tapes. He stopped scrolling and looked up at Cecil with a slight smile when he heard him say “ _This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner,_ ” and Cecil caught his eye and smiled back. However, Cecil’s smile faded as the door to the booth swung open; Carlos turned to see a young man in a suit with swept back brown hair and black, black eyes with a sheet of paper in his hand. The man ignored Carlos entirely as he strode over to hand the paper to Cecil, then quickly walked out once again. Cecil sighed and turned back towards the microphone, lifting the sheet of paper and beginning to read it: “ _And now, an important message from StrexCorp Synernists, Inc..._ ”

Once he was finished reading, he excitedly put another tape into the player. The information had stopped flowing to his computer, but Carlos could see the gears in Cecil’s head turning. The young Cecil was so excited, so full of life. He went on and on about how great working at the radio station was, and Carlos could hardly suppress the grin across his face when he heard Cecil’s young voice say “Neat!” However, Carlos found himself frowning when Cecil on the tape began to talk about his mother hiding from him and covering the mirrors. Did she know what was going to happen to Cecil and was she scared? Or was she just out of sorts like Josie had said? 

“ _I’m– I’m sorry, I got distracted. That weird movement is back, and it’s– it’s closer now. Hello? Hello? I’m Cecil! Cecil Gershwin Palmer! And you cannot scare me! You cannot! You canno – hello?_ ”

“ _Let’s… um…_ ” Cecil said, his eyes wide as he quickly ejected the tape. “ _Let’s just go to the weather, okay?_ ” He hit a button and took off the headset and threw the tape back into the box. “I don’t want to listen to anymore.” He said, turning to Carlos and shaking his head. Carlos turned in his chair and reached over to take Cecil’s hand. “Come on, there aren’t many more, right? And every time you listen to one, the Interface can feel you thinking and I get all of these files of memories. We’re getting your memories back.”

Cecil squeezed Carlos’s hand and looked down with a soft sigh. He nodded slightly before looking back up at the box. “Okay. One more.” Cecil took the last tape out of the box and slipped it into the recorder before turning back to the microphone and leaning back in his chair. Carlos watched him for a moment, hoping he was okay, before turning back himself to the laptop. The weather ended and Cecil immediately hit play on the player. Carlos couldn’t believe what he heard next.

“ _Interning is going great! Mom is gone, um… Oh! Leonard is super nice to me! My brother’s gone, too. Family, right? I think I’m learning a lot at the station. All the mirrors in my house are uncovered now, and I’m not sure who did that. I’m standing in front of the hall mirror right now. Am I changed? Am I becoming an adult? I look more grown, I think. More professional. Leonard said if I work hard, maybe I’ll be a radio presenter myself some day! Leonard said he once was smaller too, but that he is larger now – that everything is larger. That everything in the universe is growing to towering sizes, but all at once – all in unison. So no one notices, and it is all the same relative to itself. Leonard lolls his tongue out of his thick, purple lips. Leonard hisses. Being an intern is great! That flickering movement is everywhere now. Especially looking in this mirror. I see the flickering movement, and I know. I know it. I think the radio station is fun. I think the radio station is hidden. I think the radio station is like a dark planet lit by no sun. I think, therefore I soon won’t be. I’m looking in a mirror. The mirror is not covered. The flickering movement is just…behind me. I–_ ”

Suddenly, the Cecil on the tape was screaming, there was a loud thump, and Carlos could hear strange, strangled noises, like something was being shoved down his throat. When the recording stalled, Cecil was frozen; Carlos stopped the tape and took it out. As he went to put it in the box, Cecil took it from his hand.

“What _is_ this? What is _this_? What-” He shook his head; Carlos stood up and walked behind Cecil. “ _No matter. I’m taking the tape, and just now I’m… crushing it… into little pieces…_ ” Carlos’s eyes went wide as Cecil began to tear the tape apart, breaking plastic and tearing film; the palms of his hands began to darken to a harsh purple color, Carlos could see that his skin was trying to break and bleed. “ _None of us have to think about it again. I’ll just double-check that the mirror in the station bathroom is covered, as usual, and then that will be that._ ” He blinked, eyes darting from side to side then nodded to himself. “ _Done. Forgotten._ ” He sighed softly; Carlos leaned down behind his chair and wrapped his arms around Cecil’s shoulders. 

“ _We all do foolish things when we are teenagers. We all have foolish false events that happen to us, foolish gaps in our memories. Not everything that has happened, has ever really happened. Listeners, especially our younger listeners, consider this: When we talk about teenagers, we adults often talk with an air of scorn, of expectation for disappointment. And this can make people who are presently teenagers feel very defensive. But what everyone should understand is that none of us are talking to the teenagers that exist now, but talking back to the teenager we ourselves once were – all stupid mistakes and lack of fear, and bodies that hadn’t yet begun to slump into a lasting nothing. Any teenager who exists now is incidental to the potent mix of nostalgia and shame with which we speak to our younger selves. May we all remember what it was like to be so young. May we remember it factually, and not remember anything that is false, or incorrect._ ” Cecil paused, looking down sadly. “ _May we all be human- beautiful, stupid, temporal, endless._ ” He blinked a few times, then placed a hand over his chest, and one over one of Carlos’s hands. “ _And as the sun sets, I place my hand upon my heart, feel that… it is still beating, and remind myself: Past performance is not a predictor of future results._ ”

Cecil closed the show, then shut off the microphone. He took off his headset, and his face promptly fell into his hands. Carlos only held him tighter.

*

When they left the station that night, Cecil went to Carlos’s room and collapsed on Carlos’s bed. Carlos had brought the tapes home, even the destroyed one, and stowed them away. He ignored the lewd comments from Sheila as he entered his bedroom again. He sat down on the edge of the bed beside Cecil, carefully combing his fingers through his hair. “You okay?” He asked softly. Cecil made a small noise- he wasn’t okay. Carlos sighed, trying to find something, anything, to say. “You know, I haven’t sorted through all of it, but I got a lot of information today. Do you… want to help me sort through it?”

“I don’t know who I am.” Cecil whispered.

Carlos had no response. Cecil turned to lie on his back and look up at Carlos, wearing an expression that would be paired with buckets of tears if Cecil could cry. “I was human when I made those tapes, Carlos,” He said, voice trembling. “I was human with hot blood and a beating heart. I had hopes and dreams and aspirations. I… I had a family. I…” Cecil stopped himself then shook his head. “N-no, I… I didn’t have any of those things.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you did- that was you we just listened to, Cecil-”

“No, it wasn’t!” Cecil suddenly shouted, throwing himself up to a sitting position. “The person on those tapes is a stranger to me, Carlos! As far as I’m concerned, that… that child on those tapes is… he’s still out there. With his mother and his brother and he’s… he’s safe from all of the… bullshit that goes on here.”

Cecil’s word choice made Carlos jump. Cecil rarely cussed, aside from the occasional “what the hell” or the equivalent thereof. Carlos was silent as Cecil’s face fell into his hands, and a pained and shaky sigh escaped his chest. Unable to think of anything better to do, Carlos reached out and gently laid his hand across Cecil’s knee. Two of Cecil’s fingers split apart so he could peer through them, and he slowly dropped one hand to cover Carlos’s. “You know what I think?” Carlos asked softly, turning his hand to wrap his fingers around Cecil’s. Cecil remained silent, but turned his head to look over at Carlos. “I think… that you are Cecil Gershwin Palmer. You are the host of Night Vale Community Radio. You…” Carlos chuckled softly. “You have a floating cat named Khoshekk for a pet. You love your town more than anything. And…” Carlos paused, looking down at their joined hands and squeezing Cecil’s cooler one tightly before looking back up. “You are more human than anyone I’ve ever met.” He finished, voice soft.

Cecil remained quiet, but his face had softened. He still looked like he was about to cry, but there was a different emotion behind his features now. He leaned over slowly, pecking the corner of Carlos’s mouth; Carlos squeezed his hand again. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Cecil whispered, voice trembling. Carlos gave him a soft, knowing smile, leaning over to kiss Cecil’s cheek. “I don’t know where I’d be without you.” He replied, bringing a soft purple glow to Cecil’s face. Cecil bit his lip softly, eyes falling for a moment before his breath hitched. “Carlos, what does… love feel like?”

Carlos blushed softly. He looked down, racking his brain for a description of the feeling “love” that wasn’t all chemical reactions in the brain and internal functions. “Well…” He breathed, leg bouncing slightly as he continued to think. He sighed, his shoulders slumping as he felt all logic and reason leave his train of thought. That was the only way he could describe this to Cecil, and to himself.

“Truthfully? I couldn’t tell you. But… from what I’ve gathered, love is… the feeling of complete joy when you see a person you care about very much. Your heart rate jumps or pauses entirely for a moment, your face heats up as they come closer, your hands shake, your knees tremble, your mouth gets dry and it feels like no words can come out. Love is when that person you care about is beautiful to you no matter what. Love is when… you can look into that person’s eyes and know… whether the knowledge is in your head, or your stomach, or your heart, or sometimes all three- that they are imperfect. And the imperfections that they might see as flaws, you see as enhancements to how perfect they really are. When you look at this person, you can see your life together, and that life is perfect. You look at this person and you think about all the ways you could protect them and make them happy.

“The way I see it- at least, from a… scientific standpoint- love is when you can look at this person that you see as so beautiful and incredible and genuine and see all the things that they’re made up of. Sunshine, and star dust, and clear ocean water, and warm wind. But you also see the bad things- the… void, the dying flowers that bugs are eating up, chemicals and chemical reactions, glowing toxins, and nightmares. But it’s the beautiful things that shine through the dark things. And though the dark things still come up from time to time, because there really is no getting rid of them, you… you know you love them if you can, not eliminate the bad things, but help the good things shine even brighter.

“Does that make sense?”

Cecil swallowed and smiled, squeezing Carlos’s hand tightly. “I think so.” He said softly, nodding. Carlos smiled back; Cecil rested his head on Carlos’s shoulder, closing his bright eyes. Carlos turned his head to press a kiss to Cecil’s hair.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” Carlos whispered, letting go of Cecil’s hand to gently wrap his arm around his shoulders, hugging him closer. Cecil hummed softly; Carlos smiled.

“I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I haven't updated in a while and this update is really short... I feel like the next few chapters will follow the same pattern, at least until the next turning point. I'm following canon- this was obviously "Cassette", what do you think will be the next chapter?
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos and kind words despite my less than frequent updating! School gets out soon and I've got finals coming up, but I'll be done and out soon enough and hopefully I'll get back to writing more frequently


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